drugstore cowboy
Americannoun
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a young man who loafs around drugstores or on street corners.
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a person who dresses like a cowboy but has never worked as one.
Etymology
Origin of drugstore cowboy
First recorded in 1905–10
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Everyday words, surely, but ones that, in the mouth of the drugstore cowboy, acquire meanings altogether different from their common use.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 26, 2012
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater went so far as to call him "a drugstore cowboy."
From Time Magazine Archive
When he climbed aboard his palomino Goldie to exhibit his amateur's skill at dressage, the demands of a bad hip made him mount like a drugstore cowboy.
From Time Magazine Archive
He is a dime-store philosopher, a drugstore cowboy, a men's room conversationalist.
From Time Magazine Archive
He described Haupt as a "drugstore cowboy," which was slang for a young man who hangs out on street corners or drugstores.
From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
