Cow- to intimidate into submission; to bully
Ex: One time I got cowed by a super cool 12-year-old into being one of his posse members. I was 23 at the time. An awkward 23. And he was a smooth-talking, flat-brim wearing 12-year-old. He had the freshest Jordan sneakers and he sure knew his way around a lacrosse stick. His banter was quicker and wittier than mine, and he verbally embarrassed me on a handful of occasions. So, I had no choice but to join him. I wasn’t even considered one of his core friends, more like a peripheral hype man who would chime in to say, “Yea! You tell him, Johnny!” after he roasted a nerd in an Osh Kosh B’gosh long sleeve. I was always the first one to offer up my knuckles for a quick knuckle touch after one of these roasts, but, inevitably, he turkeyed me every time. Turkeying, for those of you unfamiliar, is when one person goes for a knuckle touch, and the other person switches up from knuckles to a high five at the last moment, creating the shape of a turkey when the two hands meet. You’ll never know the indignity of being turkeyed in front of the captain of the middle school girls’ junior varsity volleyball team. I knew Johnny was just doing it to look cool in front of her, so I swallowed my pride and went along with it. He ran that pool club. It was Johnny’s world, we were all just living in it.