ox

play

noun \ˈäks\

Definition of ox

plural

oxen

play \ˈäk-sən\ also

ox

1 : a domestic bovine mammal (Bos taurus); broadly : a bovine mammal a team of oxen
2 : an adult castrated male domestic ox

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Recent Examples of ox from the Web

Six years before colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor to protest British tariffs, the royalist governor of North Carolina, William Tryon, tried to appease local militiamen by roasting a whole ox.

— patrik jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor, "Ambassadors of smoke", 2 July 2017
OX 2225 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Portland, OR 97212 OX is an Argentinian-inspired spot near downtown that specializes in meat.

— andy staples, SI.com, "Where to eat, drink in Portland, Oregon", 30 June 2017
The story of the Diaz family goes back several decades, to the start of the Bracero Program in 1942 and the fateful purchase of an ox.

— tatiana sanchez, The Mercury News, "From farmworker fields to MIT: Gilroy family shares success story", 7 June 2017
At one beef party, an ox was slaughtered and the video was shared online.

— vidhi doshi, Washington Post, "To protest against Modi, these Indians are cooking beef in public", 6 June 2017
Elk, wolves, reindeer, or musk oxen eat the dead grass underneath the snow by pushing the snow away with their horns, snouts, or hooves.

— National Geographic, "100 Practical Ways to Reverse Climate Change", 28 May 2017
Today, on the outskirts of town, peasants riding ox carts and dump trucks heading to Hpakant line up at candy-cane striped sawhorses wrapped in barbed wire.

— doug clark, New York Times, "In Myanmar, a Lake That Sustained Generations Feels Strains", 28 May 2017
In 1930, Hogben injected Xenopus with extracts from an ox’s pituitary gland—a pea-sized hormone factory at the base of the brain.

— ed yong, The Atlantic, "How a Frog Became the First Mainstream Pregnancy Test", 4 May 2017
That same character will later eat the ox-hide straps of his snowshoes in a futile effort to survive.

— marcus crowder, sacbee.com, "‘The Donner Party’ musical stumbles as it tries to find appropriate tone", 25 Apr. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ox'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of ox

Middle English, from Old English oxa; akin to Old High German ohso ox, Sanskrit ukṣā bull, and perhaps to Sanskrit ukṣati he moistens, Greek hygros wet — more at humor

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First Known Use: before 12th century

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