Kye

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kaɪ/

Definitions

1. A term used in certain dialects to denote cows or cattle as livestock ; an archaic or regional word referring to a herd of bovine animals
2. A dialectal expression for multiple bovines commonly used in pastoral contexts ; a now uncommon term for a group of domesticated cattle
3. A word chiefly found in Scottish or Northern English vernaculars signifying cows collectively ; an obsolete or rare term for a cattle herd maintained for agricultural purposes

Etymology: "Kye" is a plural in form: it is the old plural of "cow," as "kine" was in older English. Its origin lies in Old English "cū," which gave the singular "cow," while the plural "cy" (later spelled "ky" and "kye") came from an older plural ending. The same pattern survives in Germanic relatives: Dutch "koeien," German "Kühe," Danish "køer" and Icelandic "kýr" are all plurals of their words for cow. Because the plural took on a life of its own, English speakers in the north came to use "kye" as a collective noun, meaning a group of cattle rather than a count of individual animals. It is a plain word with no hidden story: a surviving plural that outlived the standard form in Scots and northern dialects.

Synonyms: cattle, oxen, livestock, herd