Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Deer

Deer (dēr), n. sing. & pl. [OE. der, deor, animal, wild animal, AS. deór; akin to D. dier, OFries. diar, G. thier, tier, Icel. dȳr, Dan. dyr, Sw. djur, Goth. dius; of unknown origin. √71.] 1. Any animal; especially, a wild animal. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Mice and rats, and such small deer. Shak.

The camel, that great deer. Lindisfarne MS.

2. (Zoöl.) A ruminant of the genus Cervus, of many species, and of related genera of the family Cervidæ. The males, and in some species the females, have solid antlers, often much branched, which are shed annually. Their flesh, for which they are hunted, is called venison.

☞ The deer hunted in England is Cervus elaphus, called also stag or red deer; the fallow deer is C. dama; the common American deer is C. Virginianus; the blacktailed deer of Western North America is C. Columbianus; and the mule deer of the same region is C. macrotis. See Axis, Fallow deer, Mule deer, Reindeer.

☞ Deer is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound; as, deerkiller, deerslayer, deerslaying, deer hunting, deer stealing, deerlike, etc.

Deer mouse (Zoöl.), the white-footed mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) of America. — Small deer, petty game, not worth pursuing; — used metaphorically. (See citation from Shakespeare under the first definition, above.) "Minor critics . . . can find leisure for the chase of such small deer." G. P. Marsh.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.