deer

deer

hoofed ruminant mammal: The deer stood motionless in the forest.
Not to be confused with:dear – beloved, cherished; greatly valued: The old photographs are dear to her.

deer

D0057300 (dîr)n. pl. deer Any of various hoofed ruminant mammals of the family Cervidae, characteristically having deciduous antlers borne chiefly by the males. The deer family includes the white-tailed deer, elk, moose, and caribou.

---

[Middle English der, beast, from Old English dēor.]Word History: In Middle English texts one finds a fish, an ant, or a fox called a der, the Middle English ancestor of our word deer. In its Old English form dēor, the word referred to any animal, including members of the deer family, and continued to do so in Middle English, although it also acquired the specific sense "a deer." By the end of the Middle English period, around 1500, the general sense had all but disappeared. In Shakespeare's works, for example, the word deer usually refers to the antlered animals that we call deer today. However, a memory of the earlier, broader meaning is preserved in the words of the character Edgar in King Lear, which Shakespeare wrote sometime between 1603 and 1606. After being unjustly declared an outlaw by his father, Edgar disguises himself as a lunatic and lives in misery in the countryside under the name "Poor Tom." When he later meets his father, who has been blinded and cannot recognize his son, "Tom" explains that he survives by eating toads and tadpoles and whatever else he can catch: "But mice and rats, and such small deer / Have been Tom's food for seven long year." Here, such small deer would seem to mean "other such small animals." Another trace of the earlier meaning of deer is probably found in wilderness. This word is thought to descend from an unattested Old English word *wilddēornes, made up of Old English wilddēor or wildedēor, "wild animal" and the noun suffix -nes, the equivalent of the Modern English suffix -ness. Wilderness is thus "wild-animal-ness," so to speak. The German word Tier, the cognate of Old English dēor and Modern English deer, still has the general sense of "animal."

deer

(dɪə) n, pl deer or deers1. (Animals) any ruminant artiodactyl mammal of the family Cervidae, including reindeer, elk, muntjacs, and roe deer, typically having antlers in the male. 2. (Animals) (in N Canada) another name for caribou[Old English dēor beast; related to Old High German tior wild beast, Old Norse dӯr]

deer

(dɪər)

n., pl. deer, (occasionally) deers. 1. any ruminant of the family Cervidae: in most species only the males grow and shed antlers. 2. any of the smaller species of this family, as distinguished from the moose or elk. [before 900; Middle English der, Old English dēor wild animal]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

deer - distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlerscervidantler - deciduous horn of a member of the deer familyscut - a short erect tailflag - a conspicuously marked or shaped tailruminant - any of various cud-chewing hoofed mammals having a stomach divided into four (occasionally three) compartmentsCervidae, family Cervidae - deer: reindeer; moose or elks; muntjacs; roe deerpricket - male deer in his second yearfawn - a young deerCervus elaphus, red deer, wapiti, American elk, elk - common deer of temperate Europe and AsiaCervus unicolor, sambar, sambur - a deer of southern Asia with antlers that have three tinesAmerican elk, Cervus elaphus canadensis, wapiti, elk - large North American deer with large much-branched antlers in the maleCervus nipon, Cervus sika, Japanese deer, sika - small deer of Japan with slightly forked antlersOdocoileus Virginianus, Virginia deer, white tail, whitetail, whitetail deer, white-tailed deer - common North American deer; tail has a white undersideburro deer, mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus - long-eared deer of western North America with two-pronged antlersAlces alces, elk, European elk, moose - large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called `elk' in Europe and `moose' in North AmericaDama dama, fallow deer - small Eurasian deerCapreolus capreolus, roe deer - small graceful deer of Eurasian woodlands having small forked antlerscaribou, Greenland caribou, Rangifer tarandus, reindeer - Arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called `reindeer' in Eurasia and `caribou' in North Americabrocket - small South American deer with unbranched antlersbarking deer, muntjac - small Asian deer with small antlers and a cry like a barkMoschus moschiferus, musk deer - small heavy-limbed upland deer of central Asia; male secretes valued muskelaphure, Elaphurus davidianus, pere david's deer - large Chinese deer surviving only in domesticated herdswithers - the highest part of the back at the base of the neck of various animals especially draft animals

deer

nounRelated words
adjective cervine
male hart, stag
female doe, hind
young fawn
collective noun herd

Translations

鹿

deer

(diə) – plural deer – noun a kind of large, grass-eating animal, the male of which sometimes has antlers. a herd of deer. 鹿 鹿

deer

→ 鹿zhCN