calf
noun
Simple meaning
A young cow or bull of any bovid, such as domestic cattle or buffalo.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kafIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkæf
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
A young cow or bull of any bovid, such as domestic cattle or buffalo.
Young of various large placental mammals e.g. whale or giraffe or elephant or buffalo
The young of various animals, especially elephant, giraffe, reindeer, seal, or whale (also indiscriminately used of other animals).
anatomy
The muscle in the back of the leg below the knee.
Leather made of the skin of domestic calves; especially, a fine, light-coloured leather used in bookbinding.
A mass of ice broken from a larger glacier, ice shelf, or iceberg.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A young cow or bull of any bovid, such as domestic cattle or buffalo.
Used this way, calf is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use calf
- “The baby calf stayed close to its mother in the field.”noun
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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.
Temporary love of an adolescent.
Capturing a calf with a lasso and binding its feet.
The outer and thinner of the two bones of the human leg between the knee and ankle.
An idol made by Aaron for the Israelites to worship.
Black calfskin leather tanned with chromium salts.
The middle of the calf.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The brain of a calf eaten as meat.
Liver of a calf used as meat.
The tongue of a calf eaten as meat.
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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.