Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A young cow or heifer; a cow that has not yet had a calf.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Scot. A heifer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Scotland and Northern England A heifer

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Ye might try it on the bauson-faced year-auld quey; an it does nae gude, it can do nae ill. —

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • "I said I had a name for the thing; but they were no friends of mine who gave me the credit, and I never stole stot or quey in all my life."

    John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn Neil Munro

  • Some other defaulters were dealt with before the Mac-Nicolls, a few throughither women and lads from the back-lanes of the burghs, on the old tale, a shoreside man for houghing a quey, and a girl Mac Vicar, who had been for a season on a visit to some Catholic relatives in the

    John Splendid The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn Neil Munro

  • The Deil, or else an outler quey, [unhoused heifer]

    Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

  • Airshire breed -- and I have promised him a cheese; and I wad wuss ye, if Gowans, the brockit cow, has a quey, that she suld suck her fill of milk, as I am given to understand he has none of that breed, and is not scornfu 'but will take a thing frae a puir body, that it may lighten their heart of the loading of debt that they awe him.

    Sir Walter Scott (English Men of Letters Series) Richard Holt Hutton 1861

  • Ye might try it on the bauson-faced year-auld quey; an it does nae gude, it can do nae ill.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 1822

  • Ye might try it on the bauson-faced year-auld quey; an it does nae gude, it can do nae ill.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete Walter Scott 1801

  • I dare not say one word how much I was charmed with the Major's friendly welcome, elegant manner, and acute remark, lest I should be thought to overbalance my orientalisms of applause over-against the finest quey [191] in Ayrshire, which he made me a present of to help and adorn my farm-stock.

    The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham Robert Burns 1777

  • The next day I caught a bus across to Sydney and then walked back across the bridge to circular quey where I watched one of the only laddie street performers who was a contortionist.

    TravelPod.com Recent Updates 2009

  • Devonshire kye, of which he is enamoured, although I do still haud by the real hawlit Airshire breed -- and I have promised him a cheese; and I wad wuss ye, if Gowans, the brockit cow, has a quey, that she suld suck her fill of milk, as I am given to understand he has none of that breed, and is not scornfu 'but will take a thing frae a puir body, that it may lighten their heart of the loading of debt that they awe him.

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete Walter Scott 1801

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