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OX
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Irregular inflected form: oxen
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Any of various wild bovines especially of the genera Bos or closely related Bibos
Synonyms:
ox; wild ox
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("ox" is a kind of...):
bovine (any of various members of the genus Bos)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ox"):
aurochs; Bos primigenius; urus (large recently extinct long-horned European wild ox; considered one of the ancestors of domestic cattle)
Bos grunniens; yak (large long-haired wild ox of Tibet often domesticated)
banteng; banting; Bos banteng; tsine (wild ox of the Malay Archipelago)
Asian wild ox (genus of Asiatic wild oxen)
Holonyms ("ox" is a member of...):
Bos; genus Bos (wild and domestic cattle; in some classifications placed in the subfamily Bovinae or tribe Bovini)
Bibos; genus Bibos (wild ox)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An adult castrated bull of the genus Bos; especially Bos taurus
Classified under:
Nouns denoting animals
Hypernyms ("ox" is a kind of...):
Bos taurus; cattle; cows; kine; oxen (domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age)
Meronyms (parts of "ox"):
withers (the highest part of the back at the base of the neck of various animals especially draft animals)
Holonyms ("ox" is a member of...):
Bos; genus Bos (wild and domestic cattle; in some classifications placed in the subfamily Bovinae or tribe Bovini)
Context examples:
And yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak good English, to think thoughts that none of your own kind thinks, to tear yourself away from the oxen and the Lizzie Connollys and to love a pale spirit of a woman who is a million miles beyond you and who lives in the stars!
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I heard a noise behind me like that of a dozen stocking-weavers at work; and turning my head, I found it proceeded from the purring of that animal, who seemed to be three times larger than an ox, as I computed by the view of her head, and one of her paws, while her mistress was feeding and stroking her.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: Pieces of eight!
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
St. Luke's day had come and had gone, and it was in the season of Martinmas, when the oxen are driven in to the slaughter, that the White Company was ready for its journey.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Thus war was announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth contained.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great distance.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
At last it was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it would be a blessing or a curse to him.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
In the first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: I am Doctor Knowall, and have that nailed up above your house-door.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
