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cattle

cat·tle/ˈkætəl/noun, verb

cattle is spelled C-A-T-T-L-E: 6 letters and 2 syllables (cat·tle). It appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,595th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, cattle means “Domesticated animals of the species Bos taurus (cows, bulls, steers, oxen etc), and other hoofed mammals of the genus Bos” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in cattle?

Letters6: C-A-T-T-L-E
Syllables2: cat·tle
In writing14 times per million words; the 5,595th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is cattle?

Cattle appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,595th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cattle?

  • /ˈkætəl/
  • [ˈkʰætʰəl] ~ [ˈkʰætʰl̩]
  • /ˈkæɾəl/

Cattle has 2 syllables, split cat·tle in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cattle.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of cattle

  • cattles present, singular, he/she/it
  • cattling participle, present
  • cattled participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cattle mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

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

    Many cattle were suffering from a disease called BSE.

  2. 2

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

  3. 3

    derogatoryPeople who resemble domesticated bovine animals in behavior or destiny.

  4. 4

    obsoletechattel

    goods and cattle

  5. 5

    rareUsed in restricted contexts to refer to the meat derived from cattle.

    If a particular whale species isn't endangered, then there's not a blind bit of difference between butchering them or cattle.

verb

  1. 1

    slangEllipsis of cattle truck (“to fuck: to break, destroy”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cattle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchbétail, bovins (domesticated bovine animals)
GermanKühe, Rinder, Rindvieh (domesticated bovine animals), Vieh (certain other livestock)
Portuguesegado (bovino) (domesticated bovine animals), gado (certain other livestock), ralé (pejorative: people who resemble cattle in…)
Spanishganado (domesticated bovine animals)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cattle come from?

From Middle English catel, from Anglo-Norman catel (“personal property”), from Old Northern French (compare French cheptel, Old French chetel, chatel, also English chattel) from Medieval Latin capitāle, from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (whence also capital, from caput (“head”) + -alis (“-al”)). For the sense evolution, compare pecuniary and fee. Also compare Russian поголо́вье (pogolóvʹje, “total number of livestock”) from Russian голова́ (golová, “head”). Doublet of capital and chattel.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cattle