DEER • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Deer

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noun

Deer n.

Any animal; especially, a wild animal. (Obs.) "Mice and rats, and such small deer." "The camel, that great deer."

(Zool.) A ruminant of the genus Cervus, of many species, and of related genera of the family Cervidae. The males, and in some species the females, have solid antlers, often much branched, which are shed annually. Their flesh, for which they are hunted, is called venison. Note: The deer hunted in England is Cervus elaphus, called also stag or red deer; the fallow deer is Cervus dama; the common American deer is Cervus Virginianus; the blacktailed deer of Western North America is Cervus Columbianus; and the mule deer of the same region is Cervus macrotis. See Axis, Fallow deer, Mule deer, Reindeer. Note: Deer is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound; as, deerkiller, deerslayer, deerslaying, deer hunting, deer stealing, deerlike, etc.

Deer mouse (Zool.), the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus, formerly Hesperomys leucopus) of America.

Small deer, petty game, not worth pursuing; used metaphorically. (See citation from Shakespeare under the first definition, above.) "Minor critics... can find leisure for the chase of such small deer."

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Etymology of 'Deer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Deer" Quotes from Famous Books

... songs and music of ministrels or, it may be, heard with wonder the tales of far-off countries brought by some returning traveler. Outside castle walls a common sport was hunting in the forests and game preserves attached to every estate. Deer, bears, and wild boars were hunted with hounds; for smaller animals trained hawks, or falcons, were employed. But the nobles, as we have just seen, found in fighting their chief outdoor occupation ...

— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... and his handsome wife could not comfortably ride in the same coach at the same time. But there was surely as much determination as pride in this gentleman's great-grandfather, Vrederyck Flypse, descendant of a line of viscounts and keepers of the deer forests of Bohemia, Protestant victim of religious persecution in his own land, immigrant to New Amsterdam about 1650, and soon afterward the richest merchant in the province, dealer with the Indians, ship-owner in the East and West India trade, importer of slaves, ...

— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens

... back-handed blow on the nose that he instantly measured his length on the ground. John Bumpus made a sudden plunge at the savage on seeing this, but the latter ducked his head, passed like an eel under the very arms of the sailor, and went off into the forest like a deer. ...

— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... the last curve in the steep road up from Deer Creek the horses halted of themselves to rest; Arthur and his sister gazed out upon the vast, dreamy vision—miles on miles of winding river shimmering through its veil of silver mist, stately hills ...

— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... this. Are you, sirrah, versed in the four and twenty metres? Can you trace the line of Gog and Magog and of Brutus son of Silvius {48b} down to a century before the destruction of Troy? Can you prophesy when, and how the wars between the lion and the eagle, and between the stag and the red deer will end? Can you?" "Ho there! let me ask him a question," said another who stood by a huge seething cauldron, {48c} "draw near, and tell ...

— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

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