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Deer (singular and plural) are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the family include the white-tailed deer, mule deer (such as the black-tailed deer), elk, moose, red deer, reindeer (caribou), fallow deer, roe deer, pudú and chital. Male deer of all species (except the Chinese water deer) and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year. In this they differ from permanently horned animals, such as antelope, which are in the same order as deer and may bear a superficial resemblance to them. The musk deer of Asia and water chevrotain (or mouse deer) of tropical African and Asian forests are not usually regarded as true deer and form their own families: Moschidae and Tragulidae, respectively. ==Terminology== The word ''deer'' was originally broader in meaning, but became more specific over time. In Middle English, ''der'' (Old English ''dēor'') meant a wild animal of any kind. This was in contrast to ''cattle'', which then meant any sort of domestic livestock that was easy to collect and remove from the land, from the idea of personal-property ownership (rather than real estate property) and related to modern ''chattel'' (property) and ''capital''. Cognates of Old English ''dēor'' in other dead Germanic languages have the general sense of ''animal'', such as Old High German ''tior'', Old Norse ''djur'' or ''dȳr'', Gothic ''dius'', Old Saxon ''dier'', and Old Frisian ''diar''. This general sense gave way to the modern English sense by the end of the Middle English period, around 1500. However, all modern Germanic languages save English and Scots retain the more general sense: for example, German ''Tier'', Alemannic ''Diere'' or ''Tiere'', Pennsylvania Dutch ''Gedier'', Dutch ''dier'', Afrikaans ''dier'', Limburgish ''diere'', Norwegian ''dyr'', Swedish ''djur'', Danish ''dyr'', Icelandic ''dýr'', Faroese ''dýr'', West Frisian ''dier'', and North Frisian ''diarten'', all of which mean ''animal''. (However, contrary to south European languages, ''Dama'' in Latin and ''daim'' in French mean ''fallow deer'' only). For most types of deer in modern English usage, the male is called a ''buck'' and the female is termed a ''doe'', but the terms vary with dialect, and especially according to the size of the species. For many larger deer, the male is termed a ''stag'', while for other larger deer the same words are used as for cattle: ''bull'' and ''cow''. The male red deer is a ''hart'', especially if more than five years old, and the female is a ''hind'', especially if three or more years old; both terms can also be used for any species of deer, and were widely so used in the past.〔OED, s.v. ''hart'' and ''hind''〕 Terms for young deer vary similarly, with those of the smallest species being called a ''fawn'' and of the largest species ''calf''; young of the smallest kinds may be a ''kid''. A castrated male deer is a ''havier''. A group of deer of any kind is a ''herd''. The adjective of relation pertaining to deer is ''cervine''; like the family name ''Cervidae'', this is from (ラテン語:cervus), meaning ''deer''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「deer」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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