# cattle

Pronunciation: say "KAT-uhl" /ˈkætəl/

## Noun

1. Domesticated hoofed animals of the genus Bos, including cows, bulls, steers, and oxen, raised on farms.
   - Simple: Large farm animals such as cows, bulls, and oxen, kept for milk, meat, or work.
   - _The ranch runs several thousand cattle across its grazing land._
   - _Dairy cattle need careful feeding to keep up milk production._
2. People seen as resembling a domesticated herd in their behavior or fate: passive, easily driven, and treated with no regard for the individual.
   - Simple: People seen as a passive herd, easily led, or treated as if each person does not matter.
   - _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._

## Noun

3. Certain farm livestock other than cows: such as sheep, pigs, or goats, and occasionally horses. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Farm livestock such as sheep, pigs, or goats, and sometimes horses.
4. The flesh of bovine animals used as food; beef, in restricted contexts, mostly in compounds. *(rare)*
   - Simple: The meat that comes from cows and bulls, also called beef.
5. Movable personal property; the goods and possessions a person owns apart from land, in old legal usage. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Property or goods that a person owns and can carry or sell.

## Other meanings

- (verb) Ellipsis of cattle truck: in Cockney rhyming slang, to break, ruin, or wreck something.

## 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.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cattle (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).