OXEN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does oxen mean? 

• OXEN (noun)
  The noun OXEN has 1 sense:

1. domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age

  Familiarity information: OXEN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OXEN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

Bos taurus; cattle; cows; kine; oxen

Context example:

a team of oxen

Hypernyms ("oxen" is a kind of...):

bovine (any of various members of the genus Bos)

Meronyms (parts of "oxen"):

beef; boeuf (meat from an adult domestic bovine)

Meronyms (members of "oxen"):

calf (young of domestic cattle)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "oxen"):

ox (an adult castrated bull of the genus Bos; especially Bos taurus)

stirk (yearling heifer or bullock)

bullock; steer (castrated bull)

bull (uncastrated adult male of domestic cattle)

cow; moo-cow (female of domestic cattle:)

beef; beef cattle (cattle that are reared for their meat)

Welsh; Welsh Black (a breed of dual-purpose cattle developed in Wales)

red poll (hornless short-haired breed of beef and dairy cattle)

Africander (tall large-horned humped cattle of South Africa; used for meat or draft)

dairy cattle; dairy cow; milch cow; milcher; milk cow; milker (cattle that are reared for their milk)

Devon (red dual-purpose cattle of English origin)

grade (a variety of cattle produced by crossbreeding with a superior breed)

Holonyms ("oxen" is a member of...):

Bos; genus Bos (wild and domestic cattle; in some classifications placed in the subfamily Bovinae or tribe Bovini)

herd (a group of cattle or sheep or other domestic mammals all of the same kind that are herded by humans)

 Context examples 

There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two talers.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I stored the boat with the carcases of a hundred oxen, and three hundred sheep, with bread and drink proportionable, and as much meat ready dressed as four hundred cooks could provide.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty surroundings among smells and stenches.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: Pieces of eight!

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it to the king.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and the Lizzie Connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives in the stars!

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great distance.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Thus war was announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth contained.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

At last it was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it would be a blessing or a curse to him.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)