cattle
cattle Lexical Profile
cattle Game Scores & Validity
• noun
Large ruminant animals with horns and cloven hoofs, domesticated for meat or milk, or as beasts of burden, encompassing cows, bulls, steers, and oxen.
"The rancher drove the herd of cattle across the open plains to find better grazing pastures before winter arrived."
Word Nuance & Usage
Cattle is a plural noun that strictly takes a plural verb and possesses no distinct morphological singular form; individual animals must be referred to as cows, bulls, steers, or heifers, and numerical counts require the phrase 'head of cattle'.
• Rhymes for cattle
Word Origin & Etymology
From Middle English 'catel' (wealth, property, livestock), from Old Northern French 'catel', derived from Medieval Latin 'capitale' (property, wealth), originally meaning 'property of the head'. It is a doublet of 'chattel' and 'capital'.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.