animal

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈæn.ɪ.mᵊl/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin animal (“living being, being that breathes”),^[2][3] perhaps partly through Old French,^[3][4] the noun use of the neuter of animālis (“animate, living, having the breath of life”),^[2][3] from anima (“breath, soul, life”),^[2][3] related to animus (“mind, spirit”) and to Greek ánemos “wind”,^[3] from Proto-Indo-European *ane- (“to breathe”).^[2][3] Animals are so called simply because they breathe.^[5] The adjective came through Old French from Latin animālis.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Any sentient living creature, including humans: about 1330, in Sir Orfeo,^[3] the early 14th century in Etymonline^[2] and 1398 in the OED.^[7]

Semantic evolution

It was a rare word in English before about 1600 and is not in the King James Bible (1611),^[2] where the older word beast was used.^[5][2] The common sense, a non-human creature, a brute as opposed to a person, is from 1600,^[7] and it gradually pushed beast out of common use.^[2] Used scornfully of brutish people it is from the 1580s.^[2][7] The adjective meant “pertaining to the merely sentient part of man” in the late 14th century,^[2] “of or from beasts” by the 1630s,^[2] and “of the animal kingdom” from the 1640s.^[2] Animal magnetism (1784) first meant mesmerism,^[2] animal rights is from 1879, and animal liberation from 1973.^[2] No such animal, of a person or thing, is colloquial from 1922.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – a living creature.^[3]
• late 14th century – adjective, of the senses.^[2]
• 1580s – a brutish person.^[2]
• 1600 – a beast, as opposed to a human.^[7]
• 1784 – animal magnetism.^[2]
• 1879 – animal rights.^[2]
• 1973 – animal liberation.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A living organism that can usually move, feeds on other organisms and responds quickly to stimuli, as opposed to a plant.
2. Any such creature other than a human being; a beast.
3. A brutish or coarse person.
4. (informal) A kind of person or thing: a political animal.

Adjective

1. Of or from animals.
2. Of the physical rather than the spiritual nature of people.

Word family

• animallike
• animally
• animalize
• nonanimal
• semianimal
• superanimal
• animal pole
• animal spirits

Related words

• anima
• animalcule
• Animalia
• animalier
• animate
• animus
• animosity
• unanimous
• beast

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press