Cattle are cows and bulls kept for milk or meat. A herd of cattle, cattle grid, dairy cattle.
The word has no singular — one of them is a cow, a bull or a head of cattle — and it takes a plural verb. Cattle were wealth before they were meat, which is exactly what the word records: it comes from the same Latin as capital and chattel, meaning property. Note cattle grid, which stops them crossing.
1nouncattleCows and bulls kept for milk or meat.
“The cattle were grazing in the field beside the river.”
cattle is farm animals.
Anglo-Norman catel meant personal property, from Latin capitale. Capital and chattel are the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*kap-
Latin
capitālis — of the head
Medieval Latin
capitāle
Anglo-Norman
catel — personal property
Middle English
catel
English, today
cattle
Built from
From Middle English catel, from Anglo-Norman catel (“personal property”), from fro-nor - (compare French cheptel, Old French chetel, chatel, also English a doublet of chattel) from Medieval Latin capitāle, from Latin capitālis (“of the head”) (whence also a doublet of capital, from caput (“head”) + -alis (“-al”)). For the sense evolution, compare pecuniary and fee. Also compare поголо́вье (“total number of livestock”) from голова́ (“head”). a doublet of capital and chattel.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA