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Etymology and origin of the English word livestock

Confidence
Established
Formation
Compound
First attested
a1687, William Petty
Ultimate origin
Old English lifian,stocc
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
English live
English livestock
From the same root
English living ← live

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈlaɪvstɒk/[1]
  • US: /ˈlaɪvstɑk/[1]

Etymology

It is a compound from English live + stock,[2][3] with stock in its sense of the movable property of a farm, especially its animals.[3] The farm's implements were sometimes called “dead stock”.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Domestic animals kept on a farm for use or profit, before 1687, in William Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland.[2][5] The sources disagree on the first date: Etymonline gives the 1520s,[3] Dictionary.com 1650–60[6] and Merriam-Webster 1742.[4]

Semantic evolution

From 1755 it was also applied to people, especially enslaved people, treated as property.[2][5] Humorously, livestock meant fleas, lice and other parasites living on the body; the OED records this from 1774,[2] and Grose's slang dictionary listed it in 1785.[7][3] That sense is now rare.[2]

Timeline

  • a1687 – farm animals (OED); Etymonline dates this to the 1520s.[2][3]
  • 1755 – of people, especially enslaved people.[2]
  • 1774 – fleas and lice, humorously.[2]
  • 1785 – in Grose's slang dictionary.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. Domestic animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs, raised on a farm for food or profit.
  2. (humorous, now rare) Fleas, lice or other parasites on a person.

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
Cite this entry

“Livestock.” Etymologically, 22 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/livestock. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·