Deer

How to spell deer

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce deer

What does deer mean?

1. nounA hoofed grazing mammal, the males of many species growing antlers, often seen in woodland and parkland.

Deer in a sentence

• A young deer wandered across the quiet country road at dusk.

• The herd of deer grazed calmly in the estate parkland.

Where does deer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Deer comes from the Old English word 'deor', which in Anglo-Saxon times meant a wild animal of any kind rather than the specific creature we picture today. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close relatives such as the modern German 'Tier' and the Dutch 'dier', both of which still carry the broad meaning of 'animal' or 'beast'. Over the medieval centuries the English sense narrowed dramatically, so that by the late Middle Ages 'deer' referred almost exclusively to the antlered grazing animal hunted in forests. A fossil of the older, wider meaning survives in Shakespeare's phrase about 'small deer', where the word still gestured at little creatures generally. The double 'e' spelling, settled by early modern times, is also what keeps it visually distinct on the page from its exact-sounding twin 'dear'.

How the word is built

• deer (single morpheme; an unanalysable native noun, identical in singular and plural)

Words that sound like deer

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• dear: Greatly loved, cherished, or regarded with affection; also used to open a letter.