Etimology
From Middle English animal, from Old French animal, from Latin animal, a nominal use of an adjective from animale, neuter of animālis, from anima (“breath, spirit”). Displaced native Middle English deor, der (“animal”) (from Old English dēor (“animal”)), Middle English reother (“animal, neat”) (from Old English hrīþer, hrȳþer (“neat, ox”)).
noun
animal (plural animals)
(sciences) Any eukaryote of the clade Animalia; a multicellular organism that is usually mobile, whose cells are not encased in a rigid cell wall (distinguishing it from plants and fungi) and which derives energy solely from the consumption of other organisms (distinguishing it from plants).
(loosely) Any member of the kingdom Animalia other than a human.
(loosely) A higher animal; an animal related to humans.
(figuratively) A person who behaves wildly; a bestial, brutal, brutish, cruel, or inhuman person.
(informal) A person of a particular type specified by an adjective.
Matter, thing.
Examples
Synonym: creature
Hyponyms: human, person
Humans, like other animals, need air to breathe and food to eat.
It cannot be denied it [the chameleon] is a very abſtemious animall, and ſuch as by reaſon of its frigidity, paucity of bloud, and latitancy in the winter will long ſubſist without a viſible ſuſtentation.
Synonym: beast
Coordinate terms: human, person
When he's hungry my toddler opens his mouth like an animal instead of asking us to feed him.
Ancient nomads, wishing to ward off the evening chill and enjoy a meal around a campfire, had to collect wood and then spend time and effort coaxing the heat of friction out from between sticks to kindle a flame. With more settled people, animals were harnessed to capstans or caged in treadmills to turn grist into meal.
I spent my summer studying the animals and birds of the two islands.
Synonyms: brute, monster, savage
My students are animals.
Own me, I'll let you play the roleI'll be your animal
He's a political animal.
a whole different animal
no such animal
Related words
hyponyms
See also Thesaurus:animal
related terms
anima
animalcule
Animalia
animalier
animate
animus
Etimology
From Middle English animal, from Latin animālis, from either anima (“breath, spirit”) or animus. Originally distinct from the noun, it became associated with attributive use of the noun and is now indistinguishable from it.
adjective
animal (not comparable)
(Should we delete(+) this sense?) Of or relating to animals.
Raw, base, unhindered by social codes.
Pertaining to the spirit or soul; relating to sensation or innervation.
(slang, Ireland) Excellent.
Examples
Synonyms: beastly, bestial
Coordinate term: vegetal
animal instincts
The season has been most unfavourable to animal life; and I, who am merely animal, have suffered much by it.
[…]—according to Sanssure, Abbé Fortis, Bruckenman, Jameson, Dr. Richardson, &c. &c. both animal and vegetal remains have been detected in Basalt and Wacke.
The body was covered with soft hair, and though undoubtedly human, it was very animal in its instincts and ways.
The unsatisfactory material at our command, however, renders it difficult to determine why we cannot prove a worship of a living incarnation for every deity who is represented on the monuments in a form either wholly or partially animal. We must wonder why, for example, the sacred hawk or hawks of Horus at Edfu are scarcely mentioned.
He looked down at the tangled wet hair, the wild, bare, animal shoulders.
I thought: if pain is the thing shared by all living creatures, then I’m no longer human or animal or vegetal; I am unplugged from the tick of metabolism; I am mineral.
In any case, the argument the inhabitants of these parts would have advanced as their strongest one against the so-called chastity belt would, of course, have been that living species, whether animal or vegetative, were made the way they were for an obvious reason.
Synonyms: animalistic, beastly, bestial, untamed, wild
animal passions
To explain what activated the flesh, ‘animal spirits’ were posited, superfine fluids which shuttled between the mind and the vitals, conveying messages and motion.