cattle

1. pluralplural normallyDomesticated 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.

2. pluralplural normallyCertain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats. Also rarely applied to horses.

   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

   2 more examples

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

   1859, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book the First, chapter 2

3. derogatoryfigurativelypluralplural normallyPeople who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.

   "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

   1 more example

   "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 [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

   Synonyms: beef, Bos, bovine, cattlebeast, cattlehead, neat, kine, sheeple

4. Englishcountableobsoletepluralplural normallysometimesplural cattleslawchattel

   goods and cattle

   2 more examples

   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

   1684 July. 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

5. pluralplural normallyrareuncountableUsed in restricted contexts to refer to the meat derived from cattle.

   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 newsgroups, Usenet

   3 more examples

   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

   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.

   1996 April 3, Emmett Jordan, “Re: AR activist arrested for spreading 'Mad Cow' disease in US”, in rec.food.veg (Usenet)

present singular third person cattles · participle present cattling · participle past cattled · past cattled

1. CockneyabbreviationellipsisslangtransitiveEllipsis 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..

   2002 February 8, The Natural Philosopher, “Re: Rayburn problems”, in uk.d-i-y (Usenet)

1. A surname.