cattle
//ˈkætəl//
Forms
- Singular
- cattle
- present (v1)
- cattle
- past (v2)
- cattled
- past participle (v3)
- cattled
- present participle
- cattling
- 3rd person singular
- cattles
Definitions
1.Domesticated animals of the species Bos taurus (cows, bulls, steers, oxen etc), and other hoofed mammals of the genus Bos.
- Many cattle were suffering from a disease called BSE.
2.Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats. Also rarely applied to 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.
- 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.
3.People who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.
- "I always knew it, but I always denied it, because I'm one of them, and I'm like them." ¶"We're just cattle," the Prison Governor said, relieved now.
1.Ellipsis of cattle truck (“to fuck: to break, destroy”).(slang)
- I would talk to rayburn, and the people who converted it..I have assumed from what you said that it was an old coal burner converted...or is it a revamped oil burner? In which case the revampers may have cattled it..
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4471
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Word family
Etymology
From Middle English catel, from Anglo-Norman catel (“personal property”), from Old Northern French (compare French cheptel, Old French chetel, chatel, also English chattel) from Medieval Latin capitāle, from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (whence also capital, from caput (“head”) + -alis (“-al”)).