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A cowcatcher is the pointed metal frame on the very front of an old-style train engine. Its job is not to catch a cow and hold it. It is to shove things off the rails — a cow, a branch, a cart — so the train does not hit them square-on and jump the track. The name stuck from the days when animals really did wander onto the line. Railway people often prefer a cooler word, “pilot,” but everyday English still says cowcatcher, with a slightly old, story-book feel. You mostly meet it in history, westerns, and talk about steam trains; a modern high-speed nose is doing a similar job, though we rarely call that a cowcatcher.
排障器（火車頭正前方那塊把東西推開的鐵架；名字直譯像「抓牛的」，其實是推走，不是抓住）
組成cow + catcher: the animal it was meant to push aside + a “catcher.” The second half is a bit of a fib — it does not catch; it clears the way.
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
cowcatchernoun
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rail-transportrailwaystransportA plough-shaped device affixed to the front of a locomotive (or other large vehicle), usually wedge or V-shaped so as to push or deflect objects on the tracks out of the way, to clear out the train's path and prevent the risk of derailment or major damage to it.
- With its long tapered cowcatcher, massive headlamp and enormous diamond smokestack behind, wagon-top boiler, high running-plate above the driving-wheels reached from a front door in the square side-window cab, cylinders with slide valves mounted on top, and double bogie tender, General in its present form is typical of much earlier American locomotive practice.
- The locomotive was black, an ungainly contraption led by the triangular snout of the cowcatcher, though there would be few animals where this engine was headed.
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advertisingbroadcastingbusinessAn advertisement at the start of a program.
- Hitchhiker and cowcatcher plugs will be considered.
- National advertisers have probably been major contributors to this practice through the use of so-called hitchhike and cowcatcher announcements.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。