cattle

plural noun

cat·​tle ˈka-tᵊl 

1

: domesticated quadrupeds held as property or raised for use

specifically : bovine animals on a farm or ranch

2

: human beings especially en masse

Examples of cattle in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

My late father grew up on a cattle ranch in Uruguay, where there are three times as many cows as people. —Lola Méndez, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2024

In that period drama, Randolph plays a completely different character as Liz Dutton, one of the ancestors of the Montana cattle ranch family of the flagship series who ended season one a heartbreaking note. —Jackie Strause, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Dec. 2024

For the even stronger greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, animal agriculture accounts for a whopping 79% of U.S. emissions, largely due to fertilizers applied to crops fed to cattle and to cow manure. —Marianne Krasny, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2024

Nationally, more than 10,000 wild birds and roughly 124 million poultry have been detected with an infection since 2022, the CDC reported, in addition to hundreds of cases in cattle this year. —Connor Giffin, The Courier-Journal, 18 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English catel, cadel "property (whether real or personal), goods, treasure, livestock, (in plural cateles) possessions," borrowed from Anglo-French katil "property, goods, wealth," borrowed from medieval French (dialects of Picardy and French Flanders) catel, going back to Medieval Latin capitāle "movable property, riches," (in Anglo-Saxon law texts) "head of cattle," noun derivative from neuter of capitālis "of the head, chief, principal" — more at capital entry 1

Note: Note that the spelling cattle is uncommon before the eighteenth century. Anglo-French katil is a variant of chatel—see chattel, which is a doublet of this word. Though the variant with [k] is rare in Anglo-French, catel is frequent and used almost interchangeably with chatel in Middle English. The sense "livestock," however, is only attached to catel, to judge from citations in the Middle English Dictionary. — Regarding the meaning "movable property, riches" of capitālis see the note at capital entry 2.

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing cattle

• Australian cattle dog
• beef cattle
• cattle call
• cattle egret
• cattle grid
• cattle grub
• cattle guard
• cattle prod
• cattle tick
• common cattle grub
• dairy cattle
• short-nosed cattle louse

Kids Definition

cattle

noun

cat·​tle ˈkat-ᵊl 

plural cattle

: domestic four-footed animals held as property or raised for use

especially : bovine animals (as cows, bulls, or steers) kept on a farm or ranch