killcalf
nounEtymology From kill + calf.
1
Obsolete A butcher.
- With any summe you are afraid to lose / But in the night, but then take heed of those / Base Padding Rascalls, for their kill-calfe law / I am not priuy to, I neuer saw / Them, nor their actions, then I cannot show / How to preuent the thing I doe not know.1628, John Clavell, A Recantation of an Ill Led Life, page 35:
- Sir Francis Drake's ship at Deptford, my Lord Mayor's barge, and divers secret and unsuspected places, and there they make private shambles with kill-calf cruelty, and sheep slaughtering murder, to the abuse of Lent, the deceiving of the informers, and the great grief of every zealous fishmonger.1630, John Taylor, “Jack A Lent: His Beginning and Entertainment”, in Works of John Taylor, the Water Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, published 1876, pages 12–13:
2
Figuratively, Obsolete A violent person.