OMG People!! You all are soo mistaken and I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet! Cow eyes or "bovine eyes," as one Brazilian professor once put it, is NOT a compliment. It means having a bored or disconnected look in your eye. Audrina Patridge from The Hills and Dancing with the Stars has permanant cow eyes or the "dead behind the eyes" look as I once heard a comedian describe her. You can't really use "sad" as a synonym for this...