cowpath

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a path made or regularly used by cows, especially between pasture and barnyard

   The narrow cowpath wound from the pasture to the milking shed.

2. 2
   noun

   figurative: a route or design inherited from an old, improvised pattern

   The new road followed the bends of an earlier cowpath.

A transparent compound of cow + path. Its figurative use describes modern routes or systems that preserve the irregular course of an earlier informal track.

Topics