CowlickWord for the Wise January 05, 2007 Broadcast Topic: Cowlick Since the turn of the 17th century, English speakers have been using cowlick to refer to a lock or tuft of hair growing in a different direction from the rest of the hair.
The earliest known citation for that term comes from one R.
Haydock, who described how the locks… called cow-lickes, are made turning upwards.
(来源：www.
2hzz.
com) So here's a question to chew over.
Does cowlick have its origin in the scruffy look created by cows grooming their own hides into a fine and slothful state of disarray?
Or does it originate in a human coiffure looking as if a cow had been licking it?
Before we tell, we can't resist passing along a lick or two of cow saliva trivia.
Back during the Renaissance, cow saliva was reputed to cure male baldness, and many a concoction was cooked up for courtiers hoping to regain a full head of hair.
Luckily it's easy to come by cow saliva; the bovines produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 liters daily.
So here's the answer: the cowlick takes its name from what hair looks like after a cow licks it.
From what we've been told, the coif licked into place by a cow stays that way for quite a while.
And although we have yet to see it for ourselves, we've heard of a modern inventor developing a hair gel out of cow saliva.