Dictionary Home »
Dictionary Definitions » deer
deer
The definition of a deer is a graceful, wild, hoofed animal with long legs; the males have antlers.
(noun)An example of a deer is the animal in Disney's Bambi.
YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2013 by LoveToKnow Corp.
See deer in Webster's New World College Dictionary
- any of a family (Cervidae) of ruminants, including the elk, moose, and reindeer; esp., the smaller species, as the white-tailed deer and mule deer: in most species, usually only the males grow and shed bony antlers annually
- Obsolete any animal; beast
Origin: ME der < OE deor, wild animal, akin to Ger tier, ON dȳr < IE base *dhewes, *dheus-, to stir up, blow, breathe (> dusk, doze, fury): for sense development cf. animal
See deer in American Heritage Dictionary 4
noun pl. deer deer
Any of various hoofed ruminant mammals of the family Cervidae, characteristically having deciduous antlers borne chiefly by the males. The deer family also includes the elk, moose, caribou, and reindeer.
Origin:
Origin: Middle English der, beast
Origin: , from Old English dēor
. Word History: In various 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, our 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. Deer is a commonly cited example of a semantic process called specialization, by which the range of a word's meaning is narrowed or restricted. When Shakespeare uses the expression “mice and rats, and such small deer” for Edgar's diet in King Lear, probably written in 1605, we are not sure whether deer has the general or the specific sense. It is interesting to note that the German word Tier, the cognate of English deer, still has the general sense of “animal.”Learn more about deer
