cattle

plural noun

cat·​tle ˈka-tᵊl 

1

: domesticated quadrupeds held as property or raised for use

specifically : bovine animals on a farm or ranch

2

: human beings especially en masse

Examples of cattle in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Hundreds of them were on hand this week to primp and pamper more than 2,500 cows competing at what is widely considered to be the Westminster Dog Show of the cattle world. —Hope Karnopp, jsonline.com, 3 Oct. 2025

Neighbors welcome Elanco to The Valley Seven decades ago, Elanco spun off from drug company Eli Lilly to manufacture medicines for animals instead of humans, including drugs for dogs, cats, cattle, swine and poultry. —Alysa Guffey, IndyStar, 2 Oct. 2025

Once a cattle town, before its rolling hills turned to vineyards in the 1970s, Paso—as the locals call it—continues to evolve culturally. —Melinda Fulmer, Robb Report, 2 Oct. 2025

The Irish Parliament, elected on an extremely limited franchise (Irish Catholics couldn’t vote for most of the eighteenth century), responded with a bill to prevent the maiming of cattle in 1711. —Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 30 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English catel, cadel "property (whether real or personal), goods, treasure, livestock, (in plural cateles) possessions," borrowed from Anglo-French katil "property, goods, wealth," borrowed from medieval French (dialects of Picardy and French Flanders) catel, going back to Medieval Latin capitāle "movable property, riches," (in Anglo-Saxon law texts) "head of cattle," noun derivative from neuter of capitālis "of the head, chief, principal" — more at capital entry 1

Note: Note that the spelling cattle is uncommon before the eighteenth century. Anglo-French katil is a variant of chatel—see chattel, which is a doublet of this word. Though the variant with [k] is rare in Anglo-French, catel is frequent and used almost interchangeably with chatel in Middle English. The sense "livestock," however, is only attached to catel, to judge from citations in the Middle English Dictionary. — Regarding the meaning "movable property, riches" of capitālis see the note at capital entry 2.

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing cattle

• Australian cattle dog
• beef cattle
• cattle call
• cattle egret
• cattle grid
• cattle grub
• cattle guard
• cattle prod
• cattle tick
• common cattle grub
• dairy cattle
• short-nosed cattle louse

Rhymes for cattle

• battel
• battle
• brattle
• chattel
• prattle
• rattle
• tattle
• striatal

Kids Definition

cattle

noun

cat·​tle ˈkat-ᵊl 

plural cattle

: domestic four-footed animals held as property or raised for use

especially : bovine animals (as cows, bulls, or steers) kept on a farm or ranch