ruminant

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rūmināns (“chewing the cud; an animal that chews the cud”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the present participle of rūminō (“to chew over again, chew the cud, meditate”),^[2][3][5] from rūmen (“throat, gullet”),^[7][8][9] a word of uncertain origin.^[3] The OED compares French ruminant, an adjective from 1553 and a noun from 1688, and Italian ruminante, an adjective from before 1342 and a noun from 1730.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of an animal, chewing the cud: 1610, as an adjective, in W. Folkingham's Feudigraphia.^[2][10] The revised OED thus puts the adjective first, whereas Barnhart has the noun (1661) first and derives from it an adjective of 1679,^[4][11] and Etymonline dates the adjective to the 1670s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb already had both a physical and a mental sense, chewing the cud and turning something over in the mind,^[2][3] but the OED has the English word only of animals until 1849.^[2] Johnson (1755) entered it only as an adjective, "having the property of chewing the cud", quoting Ray on "ruminant creatures".^[12] A 17th-century astrological use named Aries, Taurus and Capricorn the ruminant signs, after the animals that represent them.^[2] The meditative sense follows in the 19th century, the adjective from 1849, in Thoreau,^[2][6] and the noun for a contemplative person from 1863.^[2] In zoology the word became the name of a group of artiodactyl mammals, Collins keeping the suborder apart from such animals as the camel,^[13] which the OED and Shorter Oxford include.^[2][6]

Timeline

• 1610 – adjective, of an animal, chewing the cud.^[2][10]
• 1633 – in astrology, of the signs represented by ruminant animals.^[2]
• 1661 – noun, an animal that chews the cud, in R. Lovell.^[2][10][4] Etymonline dates it to the 1660s.^[3]
• 1849 – adjective, contemplative, meditative, in Thoreau.^[2]
• 1863 – noun, a contemplative person.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An artiodactyl mammal of the suborder Ruminantia, which chews the cud and has a stomach of four chambers, one of them the rumen, as cattle, sheep, goats and deer do.^[13][10][6]
2. Any other animal that chews the cud, such as a camel.^[13][2]
3. A contemplative person.^[2]

Adjective

1. Chewing the cud; belonging to the Ruminantia: Goats are ruminant animals.^[13][10][2]
2. Meditative; slow and thoughtful: a ruminant mood.^{[13][10][6][2]}
3. (astrology) Of Aries, Taurus and Capricorn, the signs of the zodiac represented by ruminant animals.^[2]

Word family

• ruminantly
• nonruminant

Related words

• ruminate
• ruminative
• rumination
• rumen

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t 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 c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins