Singular Name For Collevctive Beasts

[rutineli]

If the female is a mare and the male is a stallion the animal is a horse, HOWEVER, if the femail is a cow and the male is a bull whath then is the animal?

[Noweia]

Many - elephants, cattle, seals, whales, giraffes and antelope to name but a few!

[Quizmonster]

I imagine Rutineli's point is that there is no 'standard' word to give a name to both male and female cattle rather than more exotic creatures. That is, a word we can put 'a/an' in front of as we say 'a horse, 'a whale' an antelope' etc without gender distinction. Clearly, 'a cow' does not include any bulls and 'a bull' does not include any cows.

The word 'bovine' can be used as a noun as well as an adjective, however, so why not - if you must have a suitable word - use it as in "A bull is a bovine and so is a cow," Rutineli?

[orange-gnome]

female cows are heffers

[Noweia]

orange-gnome: Young female cattle are called heifers, older animals are cows.

[rutineli]

Having studied such answers as were thought to be worth recording and been denied the rest which only meriyed implo/explo (wife wished for a u9wt

[Quizmonster]

I must confess that the last line of the above response is incomprehensible...to me, that is. Perhaps it is straightforward to users of text-language, but I am - happily - not one of these. Any help with decipherment?

[gessoo]

Quizmonster - I am just as baffled?!!!

[Quizmonkey]

I'm assuming a u9wt is a 'you know what' (which I don't).