Cerval

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to the neck, the slender part of the body that joins the head to the torso
2. Of or belonging to the neck region, including its muscles, bones and vessels
3. Pertaining to the neck area of the body, as in describing structures found there

Etymology: "Cerval" is an adjective meaning of, or resembling, a deer or stag, or more loosely catlike, and it comes from Latin "cervus", "stag" or "deer". The Latin word was the ordinary name for the animal, and English formed this adjective from it on the same pattern as "feline" from "feles" or "canine" from "canis". Because the Latin root ran through the animal's name, the adjective is most often met in zoological and anatomical writing, where it describes things linked to deer or to the cat family. The word's most familiar use is in the name of the serval, a slender African wild cat. Its scientific name, "Leptailurus serval", rests on the same Latin family of words, although the cat's English name comes from Portuguese "cerval", meaning deer-like, applied by early Portuguese explorers to the animal. The English adjective is a separate formation drawn directly from Latin, so the two words are related through a shared root rather than through one borrowing from the other.