Venations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of hunting or pursuing animals, particularly in a manner that emphasizes skill and sport
2. A defined method or practice associated with the capture of creatures in their natural habitats
3. The study or analysis of animal movement patterns related to hunting activities and their ecological impacts

Etymology: "Venations" is the plural of "venation," but the sense given here, hunting or pursuing game as a sport, belongs to a different English word that has nearly vanished. That older word came from Latin "vēnātio," meaning the chase, and it is a doublet of "venison," the same Latin root having reached English twice by different routes. The meaning of the chase, rather than the meat, is what the word once carried. The shared root sits in the Latin verb "venari," "to hunt," which is also the source of "venison" in its older sense of any hunted game. Over centuries the meat sense narrowed to the flesh of deer, while the hunting sense faded from ordinary use, leaving the two words sharing a root but splitting their meanings. "Venation," by contrast, is a separate word built from "vēna," Latin for "vein," plus the suffix "-ation." It describes the pattern of veins in a leaf or an insect's wing, so the two forms look alike on the page without sharing a meaning.

Synonyms: hunting, chase