bovine
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
Of, about, or characteristic of cattle.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bohvynSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈboʊvaɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An animal of the family, subfamily, tribe, or genera including cattle, buffaloes and bison.
adjective
not comparable
Of, relating to, or characteristic of cattle.
not comparable
Belonging to the subfamily Bovinae.
figurative
Sluggish, dull, slow-witted.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An animal of the family, subfamily, tribe, or genera including cattle, buffaloes and bison.
Used this way, bovine is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Nearby words
- bovid , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A fatal disease of cattle that affects the central nervous system.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: animal of the family or subfamily or tribe
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.