ruminant

/ˈrumənənt/

Other forms: ruminants; ruminantly

A ruminant is a cud-chewing, four-legged, hoofed animal, like a cow, goat, sheep, or giraffe. Ruminants are herbivores with multi-chambered stomachs.

Most ruminants have four stomach chambers, which digest the animals' tough, fibrous food in multiple steps. First, plant matter is broken down and softened by microbes in the rumen, the largest chamber. Then, it is formed into the cud — partially digested food — in the next chamber and regurgitated into the mouth. The animal chews the cud to break it down into finer particles — a process called rumination — and swallows it again. The food enters a third chamber, where its ground even further, and then on into the "true stomach."

Definitions of ruminant

1. noun

   any of various cud-chewing hoofed mammals having a stomach divided into four (occasionally three) compartments
   types:

   pollard

   a usually horned animal that has either shed its horns or had them removed

   bovid

   hollow-horned ruminants

   American antelope, Antilocapra americana, prongbuck, pronghorn, pronghorn antelope

   fleet antelope-like ruminant of western North American plains with small branched horns

   cervid, deer

   distinguished from Bovidae by the male's having solid deciduous antlers

   chevrotain, mouse deer

   very small hornless deer-like ruminant of tropical Asia and west Africa

   Giraffa camelopardalis, camelopard, giraffe

   tallest living quadruped; having a spotted coat and small horns and very long neck and legs; of savannahs of tropical Africa

   bovine

   any of various members of the genus Bos

   Old World buffalo, buffalo

   any of several Old World animals resembling oxen including, e.g., water buffalo; Cape buffalo

   bison

   any of several large humped bovids having shaggy manes and large heads and short horns

   Ovibos moschatus, musk ox, musk sheep

   large shaggy-coated bovid mammal of Canada and Greenland; intermediate in size and anatomy between an ox and a sheep

   sheep

   woolly usually horned ruminant mammal related to the goat

   wild sheep

   undomesticated sheep

   caprine animal, goat

   any of numerous agile ruminants related to sheep but having a beard and straight horns

   goat antelope

   bovid related to goats but having antelope-like features: mountain goats; gorals; serows; chamois; gnu goats

   antelope

   graceful Old World ruminant with long legs and horns directed upward and backward; includes gazelles; springboks; impalas; addax; gerenuks; blackbucks; dik-diks

   Pseudoryx nghetinhensis, forest goat, spindle horn

   cow-like creature with the glossy coat of a horse and the agility of a goat and the long horns of an antelope; characterized as a cow that lives the life of a goat

   pricket

   male deer in his second year

   fawn

   a young deer

   American elk, Cervus elaphus, elk, red deer, wapiti

   common deer of temperate Europe and Asia

   Cervus unicolor, sambar, sambur

   a deer of southern Asia with antlers that have three tines

   American elk, Cervus elaphus canadensis, elk, wapiti

   large North American deer with large much-branched antlers in the male

   Cervus nipon, Cervus sika, Japanese deer, sika

   small deer of Japan with slightly forked antlers

   Odocoileus Virginianus, Virginia deer, white tail, white-tailed deer, whitetail, whitetail deer

   common North American deer; tail has a white underside

   Odocoileus hemionus, burro deer, mule deer

   long-eared deer of western North America with two-pronged antlers

   Alces alces, European elk, elk, moose

   large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called `elk' in Europe and `moose' in North America

   Dama dama, fallow deer

   small Eurasian deer

   Capreolus capreolus, roe deer

   small graceful deer of Eurasian woodlands having small forked antlers

   Greenland caribou, Rangifer tarandus, caribou, reindeer

   Arctic deer with large antlers in both sexes; called 'reindeer' in Eurasia and 'caribou' in North America

   brocket

   small South American deer with unbranched antlers

   barking deer, muntjac

   small Asian deer with small antlers and a cry like a bark

   Moschus moschiferus, musk deer

   small heavy-limbed upland deer of central Asia; male secretes valued musk

   Elaphurus davidianus, elaphure, pere david's deer

   large Chinese deer surviving only in domesticated herds

   Tragulus kanchil, kanchil

   small chevrotain of southeastern Asia

   Tragulus Javanicus, napu

   chevrotain somewhat larger than the kanchil; found in India and Malaya

   Hyemoschus aquaticus, water chevrotain, water deer

   largest chevrotain; of marshy areas of west Africa

   Okapia johnstoni, okapi

   similar to the giraffe but smaller with much shorter neck and stripe on the legs

   type of:

   artiodactyl, artiodactyl mammal, even-toed ungulate

   placental mammal having hooves with an even number of functional toes on each foot
2. adjective

   related to or characteristic of animals of the suborder Ruminantia or any other animal that chews a cud
   “ruminant mammals”

   antonyms:

   nonruminant

   not ruminant