cattle

Syllables: cat·tle/ˈkætəl/

cattle noun: domesticated animals of the species Bos taurus (cows, bulls, steers, oxen etc), and other hoofed mammals of the genus Bos. Also the ellipsis of cattle truck.

Image: Keith Weller/USDA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cattle pl (normally plural, singular cattle)

(plural, plural-normally) 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.
(plural, plural-normally) Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats. Also rarely applied to horses.
- 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, chapter 29, in Vanity Fair, page 246
- The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his...1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book the First, chapter 2
(derogatory, figuratively, plural, plural-normally) People who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.
- "Come, that will do," interrupted Joolby with an impatient growl; "talk, talk, talk—that's all it ever comes to with your kind of cattle. Do you still think that you are playing at charades, girl? […]"1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
- "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.1961, Gerald Hanley, The Journey Homeward, page 155
Synonyms:

beef, Bos, bovine, cattlebeast, cattlehead, neat, kine, sheeple
(English, countable, obsolete, plural, plural-normally, sometimes) chattel
- goods and cattle
- 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, and Service in the Church, and Administration of the Sacraments
(plural, plural-normally, rare, uncountable) Used in restricted contexts to refer to the meat derived from cattle.
- The temptation of a lone white man was too great for any gathering of myall-natives, and sheep-fat and cattle-steak seemed there for the spearing, so that a stockman always ran the risk of attack, especially if his shepherds interfered with the native women.a. 1964, Stephen Henry Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835-1847, Melbourne University Press, published 1964, page 315
- “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”, in Airships, Grove Press, published 1994, →ISBN, page 137

Proper noun capitalized: Cattle

Cattle

A surname.

Also used as

cattle is also the ellipsis of cattle truck.

cattle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit

cattle in Hindi

livestock: पशुधन paśudhan
domesticated bovine animals: पशु paśu, पशुधन paśudhan, मवेशी maveśī

cattle in Tamil

livestock: கால்நடை kālnaṭai
certain other livestock: கால்நடை kālnaṭai
domesticated bovine animals: மாடு māṭu

cattle in Kannada

domesticated bovine animals: ದನಗಳು danagaḷu

cattle in Sanskrit

domesticated bovine animals: पशु paśu

More languagesFewer languages

cattle in Assamese: গৰু goru
cattle in Nepali: गाईवस्तुहरू, गाईवस्तु
cattle in Arabic: مَوَاشٍ mawāšin, مَاشِيَة māšiya, بَقَر baqar
cattle in Malay: lembu, sapi, cewe bok
cattle in Persian: گاو gâv, احشام ahšâm
cattle in Thai: วัว wuua

Examples of cattle in a sentence

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, page 39:
Mistris Dorothy Gray, Adminnestratrix of the Goods and Cattles of Mr Edward Gray, late of Plymouth, deceased, […]1684, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, in New England, published 1856:
If a particular whale species isn't endangered, then there's not a blind bit of difference between butchering them or cattle.2005 June 25, "Serge" (username), "Re: WOW!!!! WHALE BURGERS...... McDonalds Don't You Get Any Ideas", in aus.politics and other...

All 40 example sentences with cattle

Synonyms of cattle

All synonyms of cattle

Forms of cattle

Noun
singular	cattle
Verb
third-person singular present	cattles
present participle	cattling
past participle	cattled
past	cattled

Origin of cattle

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”)). For the sense evolution, compare pecuniary and fee. Also compare Russian поголо́вье (pogolóvʹje, “total number of livestock”) from Russian голова́ (golová, “head”). Doublet of capital and chattel.

Words formed from cattle

Words that rhyme with cattle

Questions about cattle

What does cattle mean?: Cattle means domesticated animals of the species Bos taurus (cows, bulls, steers, oxen etc), and other hoofed mammals of the genus Bos.
What is cattle in Hindi?: Cattle in Hindi is पशुधन (paśudhan), पशु (paśu), मवेशी (maveśī). See Cattle meaning in Hindi.
How do you use cattle in a sentence?: 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.
What part of speech is cattle?: Cattle can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cattle?: Cattle is pronounced /ˈkætəl/.

Words near cattle in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: cattle (page history and authors); Cattle (page history and authors); cattle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-cattle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cattle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cattle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.