Re: Moo! (was: The Birds and the Bees of Gender)

Carlos Thompson wrote:
> Probably the word _cattle_ has undergone that change: from refering to
> any kind of livestock has narrowed to mean only bovines.
According to my dictionary of word origins, when the word _cattle_
entered the language, it meant "property", and was, from the beginning,
often applied specifically to livestock.  It comes from Anglo-Norman
_catel_ from medieval Latin _capitale_, which goes back to classical
Latin _capitalis_, origin of our word "capital".  Chattel is also
related, entering thru Old (Parisian) French _chatel_

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