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cattle

noun

Simple meaning

Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

katuhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkætəl

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats. Also rarely applied to horses.

  2. Domesticated animal of the species Bos taurus (cows, bulls, steers, oxen etc), and other hoofed mammals of the genus Bos.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Certain other livestock, such as sheep, pigs or goats. Also rarely applied to horses.

Used this way, cattle 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

Nearby words

  • bos taurus , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use cattle

  • “So many head of cattle.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

beef cattledairy cattlelike cattlewild cattlecattle industrycattle raisinghorned cattle

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • cattle cakenounCompound term

    A concentrated feed for cattle.

  • cattle carnounCompound term

    A freight car for transporting cattle.

  • cattle drivenounCompound term

    Driving a bovine herd (as cows or bulls or steers).

  • cattle egretnounCompound term

    Small white egret widely distributed in warm regions often found around grazing animals.

  • cattle farmnounCompound term

    Farm consisting of a large tract of land along with facilities needed to raise livestock (especially cattle).

  • cattle gridnounCompound term

    A bridge over a ditch consisting of parallel metal bars that allow pedestrians and vehicles to pass, but not cattle.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: certain other livestock or such as sheep or pigs

bos taurusRare

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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.