livestock
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of livestock
Explanation
The animals you find on a farm are collectively called livestock. Your herd of dairy goats are livestock, but your toy poodle is just a pet. Livestock are distinguished from other animals by the fact that they're domesticated and raised for food or money — if you get wool, milk, meat, or eggs from animals, they're livestock. The word comes from the sense of stock that means "supply for future use" or "sum of money; from the 1500s, this word was also used to mean "movable property of a farm."
Vocabulary lists containing livestock
Unit 1: Telling Details
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Down on the Farm
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The United States
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The observatory has helped track these vulnerable plants on land that was previously used for livestock grazing.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 12, 2026
The legislation also codifies a program to compensate ranchers when they lose livestock to wolves or suffer indirect harm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
MacAskill's haulage firm, N D MacAskill & Son, transports livestock around Inverness, Dingwall and Stirling but also further afield.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
"We do a bit of livestock haulage from the north of Scotland down to the north of England," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
The farm has decided to let us do our booth at the festival, and to combine it with some of their resources on alternatives to traps, poisons, and hunting to manage predators and livestock encounters.
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
