livestock

livestock — noun

1. Cows, sheep, chickens, and other animals that people raise on a farm to sell or

1.nounB1
Definition

Cows, sheep, chickens, and other animals that people raise on a farm to sell or use for things like meat, milk, eggs, or wool.

Example

Ravi spent every morning feeding the livestock before heading to school.

collocation: feed the livestock

The Han family earns most of their income from selling livestock at the weekly market.

collocation: sell livestock

Common collocations
  • raise livestock
  • keep livestock
  • sell livestock
  • feed livestock
  • livestock farming
  • livestock market
  • livestock production
  • livestock industry
  • head of livestock
  • livestock auction
Synonyms
  • cattle

    refers specifically to cows and bulls, not to chickens, sheep, or pigs

  • farm animals

    a more everyday, informal term; livestock has a commercial or agricultural tone

  • stock

    shorter term used in farming and business contexts, but can be confused with financial stock

  • herds

    focuses on groups of grazing animals, not poultry or pigs

Grammar Patterns

livestock + verb (singular/plural depending on collective interpretation)

Usage Note

Always used as an uncountable noun. Do not add -s for the plural. Refers to farm animals as a collective group; an individual animal is called a cow, sheep, chicken, etc., not 'a livestock'. Can take either a singular or a plural verb depending on whether the group is thought of as a single unit ('The livestock is kept in the barn') or as individuals ('The livestock are grazing in different fields').

Common Mistakes

The farmer has five livestocks.
The farmer has fifty head of livestock.
Livestock is uncountable; use 'head of' to count individual animals.
I bought a livestock from the market.
I bought a goat from the market.
Livestock refers to the whole group, not a single animal.

Word family

  • stock
    nounB2
  • stockman
    nounC1
  • stockbreeding
    nounC1
  • stockyard
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

While all these terms refer to animals kept for agricultural purposes, they differ in scope and context. Livestock is the broadest formal term, covering cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and other animals raised on a farm for meat, milk, eggs, or wool. Cattle refers specifically to cows and bulls — the most common type of livestock in many regions. Farm animals is the most everyday, informal alternative, used in general conversation rather than in business or legal contexts; a parent might say 'let us go and look at the farm animals' at a petting zoo but a bank would approve 'a loan for livestock'. Stock is a shorter, trade-oriented term used in agriculture and insurance ('breeding stock'), but it can cause confusion with financial stock. Herds emphasises the collective group of grazing animals (cattle, sheep) and does not include poultry or pigs. In farming reports and government statistics, livestock is the standard term; when talking to children, farm animals sounds more natural.

cattle ↗farm animalsstock ↗herds

Common collocations

Nouns

  • livestock farming
  • livestock industry
  • livestock market
  • livestock feed
  • livestock auction
  • livestock insurance

Phrases

  • head of livestock
  • raise livestock
  • keep livestock
  • sell livestock

Prepositions

  • livestock on [a farm]
  • livestock in [a region]

Etymology

Old EnglishMiddle EnglishEnglish

Livestock is a compound word formed from 'live' (meaning alive, living) and 'stock' (in the sense of a store or supply of goods). 'Stock' in English originally meant a tree trunk or post, and by the 1400s it had come to mean a supply for use or a store of goods. By the 1500s, farmers used 'stock' to refer to their farm animals as a form of movable property, and the compound 'livestock' emerged in the 1600s to distinguish living animals from equipment ('dead stock').