cattle

name

1. A surname.

noun

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”)). 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.

1. Domesticated animal 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.

   “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.”

   “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 oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey.”

3. 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? […]"”

   “"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.”

4. 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.”

5. 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.”

   ““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.””

verb

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”)). 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.

1. Ellipsis of cattle truck (“to fuck: to break, destroy”).

   “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..”