DEER

A deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. A number of broadly similar animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates) are often also called deer. Male deer grow and shed new antlers each year, as opposed to horned animals such as antelope—these are in the same order as deer and may bear a superficial resemblance, but they are permanently horned.Depending on their size and species, male deer are called bucks (smallest), stags, or bulls (largest) and females are called does, hinds or cows. Young deer are called kids, fawns or calves. A group of deer is commonly called a herd. Hart, from Old English heorot "deer", is an alternative term for a stag, particularly a Red Deer stag past its fifth year (compare with the modern Dutch word hert). The county Hertfordshire is named after a place where deer ford a watercourse. The word hart is not commonly used, but Shakespeare makes several references, punning on the sound-alike "hart" and "heart", for example in Twelfth Night. "The White Hart" and "The Red Hart" are common English pub names. Whinfell Forest once contained a landmark tree called Harthorn[1]. The word "Hart" also exists in Saterfrisian, being a synonym for the Word "Hirsk" which is more similar to the German Word "Hirsch".

The word deer was originally quite broad in meaning, but became more specific over time. In Middle English, der (O.E. dēor) meant a wild animal of any kind (as opposed to cattle, which meant any domestic livestock).[2] This general sense gave way to the modern sense by the end of the Middle English period, around 1500. The German word Tier, the Dutch word dier and the Scandinavian words djur/dyr/dýr, cognates of English deer, still have the general sense of "animal". The adjective of relation pertaining to deer is cervine.