cattle
Pronunciation Noun
  1. Domesticated bovine animals (cows, bulls, steers etc).
    Do you want to raise cattle?
  2. Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or horses.
  3. (pejorative, figuratively) People who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.
  4. (obsolete, English law, sometimes countable) chattel
    goods and cattle
  5. (uncountable, rare) Used in restricted contexts to refer to the meat derived from cattle.
    • ante 1964 Stephen Henry Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835–1847,[http://books.google.com/books?id=4l8NAQAAIAAJ ] Melbourne University Press (1964), page 315:
      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.
    • ante 1978 Barry Hannah, “Eating Wife and Friends”, in Airships, Grove Press (1994), ISBN 978-0-8021-3388-5, page 137 ↗:
      “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.”
    • 1996 April 3, Emmett Jordan, "Re: AR activist arrested for spreading 'Mad Cow' disease in US ↗", in rec.food.veg, Usenet:
      Believe it or not Big Mac is one of the ultra radicals who provide fast food cattle burgers to interstate vehicles who drive all over the place providing scraps for rats, cats, flies, etc, so that the Mad Cow Disease might spread even faster than it would otherwise do.
    • 2005 June 25, "Serge" (username), "Re: WOW!!!! WHALE BURGERS...... McDonalds Don't You Get Any Ideas ↗", in aus.politics and other newsgroups, Usenet:
      If a particular whale species isn't endangered, then there's not a blind bit of difference between butchering them or cattle.
      Whale burgers. Cattle burgers......no difference!
Synonyms
  • (domesticated bovine animals) neat, Bos (scientific)
  • (people who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny) sheeple (pejorative)
Translations Translations Translations


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