bad for the coo

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.30 in modern English

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adj

Dated; Humorous

"Had the comet which traversed them been of any respectable weight he would have made havoc among them and bouleversed their motions. But it was a case of locomotive and cow, and it was "very bad for the coo.""
""Boys, you must "make it bad for the coo.""
""The accident: well, you remember all about that. An ordinary Central and Suburban passenger train, non-stop at Knight's Cross, ran past the signal and crashed into a crowded electric train that was just beginning to move out. […] For the first time on an English railway there was a good stand-up smash between a heavy steam-engine and a train of light cars, and it was 'bad for the coo.'""

From a remark attributed to railway engineer George Stephenson, said to have been asked what would happen if one of the new steam locomotives ran into a cow, and to have replied that it would be "bad for the coo" (Scots for cow).