Description:

The term 'harut' refers to the type of animal that a cow or bull is, that is referred to as 'cattle' in the plural in English and sometimes as a 'bovine', or just in general as a cow, even though cows specifically refer to females. English has a conspicuous lexical gap in this area, where this particular animal is treated in a special way, with very specific vocabulary for different types, but lacking a good, popular, general word.

Common, in contrast, was created without any history of cattle as special animals important to survival and wealth - Common treats them like any other animal. An individual of the special, female or male, castrated or intact, is called a 'harut', and special periphrastic forms are required to express the English equivalents as needed. For example:

• na lijy harut - the cow
• na cejy harut - the bull
• na ikcéjy harut - the ox (un-male, a way of saying castrated)

Used as a verb, 'harut' is just a pali verb meaning to be a cow.