Cowl
Inflections plural cowls
A hypothetical hybrid animal compounded of a cow and an owl, invoked chiefly as the subject of the question of what sound it would make.
The creature itself, conceived as bearing the body of one parent and the cry of the other.
“The cowl, being half bovine and half owl, grazes by day and hoots by night.”
— Professor Sendy
“An owl makes "hoo" and a cow makes "moo," so naturally one wonders what sound a cowl makes.”
— Professor Sendy
The vocalization produced by such a creature: a blended call combining the lowing "moo" of the cow with the hooting "hoo" of the owl, rendered approximately as "hoom" or "moo-hoo."
“He drew breath, screwed up his face, and delivered the sound a cowl makes.”
— Professor Sendy
Synonyms
Word History
The Combo
cow owl Cowl
blend (portmanteau) of COW + OWL, fusing the two animals by overlapping their shared medial diphthong /aʊ/. The premise rests on a chain of onomatopoeia: an owl is said to make the sound "hoo" and a cow the sound "moo"; the hybrid creature therefore yields a hybrid call. Homophonous with the unrelated English noun cowl ("a hooded garment; a chimney covering"), though Sendy's coinage is wholly independent of that sense.
First Known Use 2026
Coinage credited to Professor Sendy.
Attested in the source utterance, @ProfessorSendy ↗