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Module 54

Cattle originally referred to movable personal property such as livestock or small animals that could roam freely. The term was borrowed from Anglo-Norman and descended from the Latin word for "head". The word cow comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for bovine animal and the plural form in Old English was cȳ, which later became kine in some dialects of Middle English. In older texts like the King James Bible, cattle specifically referred to domesticated livestock rather than wildlife.

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31 views

Module 54

Cattle originally referred to movable personal property such as livestock or small animals that could roam freely. The term was borrowed from Anglo-Norman and descended from the Latin word for "head". The word cow comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for bovine animal and the plural form in Old English was cȳ, which later became kine in some dialects of Middle English. In older texts like the King James Bible, cattle specifically referred to domesticated livestock rather than wildlife.

Uploaded by

RatulKumarMajumdar
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Etymology

Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Anglo-Norman
catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale 'principal sum of money, capital', itself derived in
turn from Latin caput 'head'. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially
livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small
free-roaming animals such as chickens they were sold as part of the land).[10] The word is a
variant of chattel (a unit of personal property) and closely related to capital in the economic
sense.[11] The term replaced earlier Old English feoh 'cattle, property', which survives today as
fee (cf. German: Vieh, Dutch: vee, Gothic: faihu).

The word "cow" came via Anglo-Saxon c (plural c), from Common Indo-European gus
(genitive gows) = "a bovine animal", compare Persian gv, Sanskrit go-, Welsh buwch.[12]
The plural c became ki or kie in Middle English, and an additional plural ending was often
added, giving kine, kien, but also kies, kuin and others. This is the origin of the now archaic
English plural, "kine". The Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is "kye".

In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, "cattle" refers to
livestock, as opposed to "deer" which refers to wildlife. "Wild cattle" may refer to feral cattle
or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. Today, when used without any other qualifier,
the modern meaning of "cattle" is usually restricted to domesticated bovines.[13

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