DictionaryAI

cattle

KAT-uhl/ˈkætəl/

6 meanings of cattle

Practice

  1. 1
    cowsnoun
    Domesticated hoofed animals of the genus Bos, including cows, bulls, steers, and oxen, raised on farms.

    The ranch runs several thousand cattle across its grazing land.

    Dairy cattle need careful feeding to keep up milk production.

    UsageSay the cattle are grazing, many cattle. For one animal, say a cow or a steer (not incorrect: a cattle).

    Similarcows, livestock, stock

    Note

    A word that began as property: Middle English catel meant what a person owned. It came from Medieval Latin capitāle, from caput, "head," the same source as capital and chattel, and the word for possessions came to name the animals themselves.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

  2. 2
    passive peoplenounderogatoryfiguratively
    People seen as resembling a domesticated herd in their behavior or fate: passive, easily driven, and treated with no regard for the individual.

    Like a herd pushed down a narrow chute, moving only where the fences allow.

    The general spoke of the conscripts as cattle, fit only to be driven into the guns.

    To the airline, economy passengers are just cattle to be squeezed into ever smaller seats.

    UsageCommon in treated like cattle or packed in like cattle, which criticize how people are treated, not the people.

    Similarsheep

    Note

    Aimed at others, it is an insult; aimed at oneself, it is a confession. In Gerald Hanley's The Journey Homeward (1961), a prison governor says "We're just cattle" and feels relieved, as if he were admitting his own powerlessness.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

  3. 3
    nounarchaic
    Certain farm livestock other than cows: such as sheep, pigs, or goats, and occasionally horses.
    Mangcorn is utilized partly as human food, and partly as fodder for cattle, especially for fattening swine, for which purpose it is considered peculiarly adapted.
    1923, Norwegian Trade Review, numbers 6-8
    Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels.
    1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

    Similarlivestock, stock

    Note

    The wider livestock meaning can catch modern readers off guard in older prose. In Vanity Fair (1847–48), Thackeray calls the pair of horses Mr. Jos hired for his carriage "cattle," and the Norwegian Trade Review of 1923 speaks of fodder for cattle, "especially for fattening swine." When a text seems to count pigs or horses among the cattle, read it this way. Today the word means cows and their kin.

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    nounrareuncountable
    The flesh of bovine animals used as food; beef, in restricted contexts, mostly in compounds.
    “But you cooked a human being and ate him,” say I. “I couldn’t help it,” says she. “I remember the cattle steaks of the old days, the juicy pork, the dripping joints of lamb, the venison.”
    a. 1978, Barry Hannah, “Eating Wife and Friends”

    Similarbeef

    Note

    As a word for meat, it seldom stands alone. It usually appears as the first half of a compound naming the cut or dish: cattle-steak in Stephen Henry Roberts's The Squatting Age in Australia, "cattle steaks" in Barry Hannah's "Eating Wife and Friends," and "cattle burgers" in a 1996 post by Emmett Jordan. Everyday usage says beef, so cattle in this role sounds blunt and deliberate.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    The station cook served cattle steak and damper every night.

    He refused to eat cattle burgers after the scare.

  2. 5
    nounobsoletecountable
    Movable personal property; the goods and possessions a person owns apart from land, in old legal usage.
    That then every person so offending and convict, shall for his third offence, forfeit to our Sovereign Lady the Queen, all his goods and cattles, and shall suffer imprisonment during his life.
    1552, Parliament of England, An Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer
    Note

    This is the old legal meaning, the property sense behind the farm-animal word, and it can still mislead readers of old documents. It travels in the pair goods and cattles. Elizabeth I's Act of Uniformity, passed in 1559, makes an offender forfeit "all his goodes and catelles." In this sense the word often takes a plural in -s. Read it as chattels, not livestock.

  3. 6
    verbdialectalCockney
    Ellipsis of cattle truck: in Cockney rhyming slang, to break, ruin, or wreck something.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of cattle apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

From Middle English catel, from Anglo-Norman catel ("personal property"), going back through Old French to Medieval Latin capitāle and Latin capitālis ("of the head"), from caput ("head"). It is a doublet of capital and chattel.

Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts