holy cow

American  

interjection

Slang.

1. (used to express bewilderment, surprise, or astonishment.)

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holy cow Idioms  

1. Also,. 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.”

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Etymology

Origin of holy cow

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

holy cow

"It's one of those things where you test it and, holy cow, it works and you've discovered something new."

From Science Daily ● Aug. 13, 2026

“Like holy cow, a Power Five school recruiting you after one year?”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2022

"Even with making more money than I could have hoped for when I was 20-something, house prices have far outpaced that – which when I think about that I'm like, holy cow, that is insane."

From Reuters ● May 2, 2022

Having grown up speaking Spanish at home and then English at school, he’s forever fascinated by “a third language: American” — that mercurial dialect of metaphors, idioms and profanities, e.g. toke, baked, holy cow.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 15, 2022

Sometimes the holy cow looks like he is moving.

From "The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle" by Leslie Connor