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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

fallow deer   n.   A small Eurasian deer (Dama dama) having a yellowish-red coat spotted with white in summer and broad, flattened antlers in the male. [Obsolete fallow, reddish-yellow, from Middle English falow, falwe, from Old English fealu; see pel-1 in Indo-European roots.]

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fallow deer

noun

small Eurasian deer

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Fallow deer

Deer\ (d[=e]r), n. sing. & pl. [OE. der, deor, animal, wild animal, AS. de['o]r; akin to D. dier, OFries. diar, G. thier, tier, Icel. d[=y]r, Dan. dyr, Sw. djur, Goth. dius; of unknown origin. [root]71.]

1. Any animal; especially, a wild animal. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Mice and rats, and such small deer. --Shak.

The camel, that great deer. --Lindisfarne MS.

2. (Zo["o]l.) A ruminant of the genus Cervus, of many species, and of related genera of the family Cervid[ae]. The males, and in some species the females, have solid antlers, often much branched, which are shed annually. Their flesh, for which they are hunted, is called venison.

Note: The deer hunted in England is Cervus elaphus, called also stag or red deer; the fallow deer is C. dama; the common American deer is C. Virginianus; the blacktailed deer of Western North America is C. Columbianus; and the mule deer of the same region is C. macrotis. See Axis, Fallow deer, Mule deer, Reindeer.

Note: Deer is much used adjectively, or as the first part of a compound; as, deerkiller, deerslayer, deerslaying, deer hunting, deer stealing, deerlike, etc.

Deer mouse (Zo["o]l.), the white-footed mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) of America.

Small deer, petty game, not worth pursuing; -- used metaphorically. (See citation from Shakespeare under the first definition, above.) "Minor critics . . . can find leisure for the chase of such small deer." --G. P. Marsh.