Strange Words

"Cattle" is a strange word.

Think about it. You see a single bovine critter in a field. For the sake of argument, assume that it's near enough to tell that it's a bovine, not a mule, giraffe, or deer, but distant enough that you can't see the plumbing. You want to say "Hey, look at that " but what do you call it? Bull and steer are both masculine, cow and heifer are feminine, and calf, while gender-neutral, is used for young animals, not the full-grown beastie you're looking at. "Cattle" covers all genders, but it's plural.

There's no common genderless word for an individual bovine, at least that I can think of, unless you go with the Latin-based "bovine" that makes you sound odd. For other animals, we have both singular and plural words that are genderfree. "Horse" covers all cases, and you have mare, stallion, gelding, colt, and filly if you want to get gender- and age-specific. Ditto for "chicken" and the counterparts hen, rooster, pullet, cockerel, and chick.

I could go on with other examples, but I've got other things to get done.