holy cow


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holy cow

An exclamation of surprise, shock, or astonishment. Holy cow, the bill for that dinner was nearly $200! We won the lottery? Holy cow, that's amazing news!
See also: cow, holy
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

Holy cow!

Inf. Wow! Holy cow! I never expected such a nice gift! Give me a chance! Holy cow, don't rush me!
See also: holy
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

holy cow

Also, holy mackerel or Moses or moly or smoke . An exclamation of surprise, astonishment, delight, or dismay, as in Holy cow, I forgot the wine, or Holy mackerel, you won! or Holy Moses, here comes the teacher! or Holy smoke, I didn't know you were here too. The oldest of these slangy expletives uses mackerel, dating from about 1800; the one with Moses dates from about 1850 and cow from about 1920. None has any literal significance, and moly is a neologism devised to rhyme with "holy" and possibly a euphemism for "Moses."
See also: cow, holy
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Holy cow!

exclam. Wow! Give me a chance! Holy cow, don’t rush me!
See also: holy
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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References in periodicals archive ?
It also discusses in detail The Myth of the Holy Cow with its author and scholar DN Jha, who quotes chapter and verse from the Vedas to suggest that beef was eaten even during the Vedic period.
Holy Cow
The name Holy Cow gave me the impression that it would be a heavily beef oriented menu.
Restaurant review: Holy Cow, Larnaca
Anton Ferreira and Katherine Lavine, a husband and wife team who had opened Holy Cow - an organic, vegetarian restaurant - at the University of Oregon bought the building in 2010 for $525,000, according to Lane County property records.
Domino's is moving across the street
Despite this glitch, Holy Cow has seamlessly gone from strength to strength and a key to this was thoroughly developing their identity.
The "gourmet" fast food revolution
Amongst them, on this tribute to his composing career, you'll find the original recording of the much-covered Fortune Teller by Benny Spellman, dance favourite Ride Your Pony by The Meters, Holy Cow from Lee Dorsey and Here Come The Girls by Ernie K Doe.
KATE RUSBY 20 (Pure Records) [...]
HOLY cow! A schoolgirl with a rare illness has to drink six pints of milk a day just to stay alive.
MILK MADE; Holly drinks 6 pints a day to stay alive
As I began to pull some of my students' previous files and began to add up the amount of college credit that they had earned while they were in my class at the technology center, it wasn't before too long that I wrote that final number down and I added it again because I thought, 'That cannot be right.' I added again and I thought, 'Holy cow. My goodness.' In that four years time, or whatever I was calculating, my students had earned well over 1,575 hours of college credit.
Heard on the podcast
The oil ministry will also push for an increase in the price of kerosene, politically the holy cow of fuels.
DIESEL, LPG PRICES
Holy cow! It heated 80 gallons' worth of 45-degree well water to 115 degrees in 20 minutes!
Sunward solar hot water system
Duluth,MN: Holy Cow Press, 2005, ISBN#:0-930100-62-X, paper, $14.95, 137 pages.
Foot of the Mountain and Other Stories
Many of my women friends had shared stories of personal experiences ranging from ho-hum to holy cow.
Trans-Mammogram
Rear Commodore Gary Linacre, John and Kim Clinton (Holy Cow).
Rolex Skippers party
The SABC's lack of substantial depth in its coverage of Israel and at most times to completely ignore the suffering experienced by Palestinians as a consequence of policies best described as inhumane, is further evidence of a 'holy cow' syndrome.
Red Lines: Israel in South Africa's Media
Then I look at the federal government and say, 'Holy cow.' The tax code is 76,000 pages long, and what are they regulating: a 1.6-gallon flush, obesity laws."
Worth repeating
Sacred bull, holy cow; a cultural study of civilization's most important animal.
Sacred bull, holy cow; a cultural study of civilization's most important animal
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