veal
[ veel ]
/ vil /
noun
Also veal·er [vee-ler] /ˈvi lər/. a calf raised for its meat, usually a milk-fed animal less than three months old.
the flesh of the calf as used for food.
RELATED CONTENT
Why Does A Cow Become Beef?Have you ever stopped to wonder why we eat pork and beef, but not pig or cow? Menus don’t advertise sheep or deer, but mutton and venison. And, we nonchalantly nosh on veal without the linguistic reminder that we’re actually eating meat from a baby calf. When it comes to designating meat terminology, the English language has a few ways of distinguishing between the live …
RELATED WORDS
Nearby words
Origin of veal
1350–1400; Middle English ve(e)l < Anglo-French vel (Old French veel, veal) < Latin vitellus, diminutive of vitulus calf
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for veal
veal
/ (viːl) /
noun
the flesh of the calf used as food
Also called: veal calf a calf, esp one bred for eating
Word Origin for veal
C14: from Old French veel, from Latin vitellus a little calf, from vitulus calf
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
veal
late 14c., from Anglo-French vel, Old French veel "a calf" (Modern French veau), earlier vedel, from Latin vitellus, diminutive of vitulus "calf," perhaps originally "yearling," if related, as some think, to Sanskrit vatsah "calf," literally "yearling;" Gothic wiþrus, Old English weðer (see wether; cf. also veteran).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper