CATTLE

cattle, cows, kine, oxen, Bos taurus

(noun) domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age; “so many head of cattle”; “wait till the cows come home”; “seven thin and ill-favored kine”- Bible; “a team of oxen”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Etymology

Noun

cattle pl (plural only)

Domesticated bovine animals (cows, bulls, steers etc).

Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or horses.

(pejorative, figuratively) People who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.

(obsolete, English law, sometimes countable) chattel

(uncountable, rare) Used in restricted contexts to refer to the meat derived from cattle.

Usage notes

For the animals themselves, "cattle" is normally only used in the plural.

• I have fifteen cattle.

• How many cattle?

There is no universally accepted singular generic word for "cattle", although the term cattlebeast is used in some regions, and there is the archaic neat. For many people, only gendered words such as "bull" and "cow" are used for adults, "calf" for the young, etc, though especially children will use "cow" for all three.

• There are five cows and a calf in that herd of cattle.

Where the gender is unknown, "cow" is sometimes used (although properly a cow is only an adult female).

• Is that a cow in the road?

The phrase "head of cattle" may be used without regard for gender.

• One head of cattle

• He sold 50 head of cattle last year.

Occasionally "cattle" may be found in singular use

• First I saw the mandible, which looked a bit like a strange-shaped cattle; then I saw the cervical vertebrae, which looked like a horse ("Intact Ottoman 'war camel' found in Austrian cellar", BBC, 2015 April 02)

Synonyms

• (domesticated bovine animals): Bos (scientific), cattlebeast, neat

• (people who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny): sheeple (pejorative)

Anagrams

• Catlet, catlet, cattel, tectal

Proper noun

Cattle

A surname.

Source: Wiktionary

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Cat"tle, n. pl. Etym: [OE. calet, chatel, goods, property, OF. catel, chatel, LL. captale, capitale, goods, property, esp. cattle, fr. L. capitals relating to the head, chief; because in early ages beasts constituted the chief part of a man's property. See Capital, and cf. Chattel.]

Definition: Quadrupeds of the Bovine family; sometimes, also, including all domestic quadrupeds, as sheep, goats, horses, mules, asses, and swine. Belted cattle, Black cattle. See under Belted, Black.

– Cattle guard, a trench under a railroad track and alongside a crossing (as of a public highway). It is intended to prevent cattle from getting upon the track.

– cattle louse (Zoöl.), any species of louse infecting cattle. There are several species. The Hæmatatopinus eurysternus and H. vituli are common species which suck blood; Trichodectes scalaris eats the hair.

– Cattle plague, the rinderpest; called also Russian cattle plague.

– Cattle range, or Cattle run, an open space through which cattle may run or range. [U. S.] Bartlett.

– Cattle show, an exhibition of domestic animals with prizes for the encouragement of stock breeding; -- usually accompanied with the exhibition of other agricultural and domestic products and of implements.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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