ANIMAL

An organized living creature endowed with sensation. The Levitical law divided animals into clean and unclean, although the distinction seems to have existed before the Flood (Gen. 7:2). The clean could be offered in sacrifice and eaten. All animals that had not cloven hoofs and did not chew the cud were unclean. The list of clean and unclean quadrupeds is set forth in the Levitical law (Deut. 14:3-20; Lev. 11).

AN'IMAL. The Hebrews distinguished between clean and unclean animals, allowing the use of some in sacrifice for food, and forbidding it in the case of others. For the list see Lev 11.

AN'IMAL. The Hebrews distinguished between clean and unclean animals, allowing the use of some in sacrifice for food, and forbidding it in the case of others. For the list see Lev 11.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. An organized living being endowed with sensation and the power of voluntary motion, and also characterized by taking its food into an internal cavity or stomach for digestion; by giving carbonic acid to the air and taking oxygen in the process of respiration; and by increasing in motive power or active aggressive force with progress to maturity.

2. One of the lower animals; a brute or beast, as distinguished from man; as, men and animals.

Part of speech: adjective (a.)

1. Of or relating to animals; as, animal functions.

2. Pertaining to the merely sentient part of a creature, as distinguished from the intellectual, rational, or spiritual part; as, the animal passions or appetites.

3. Consisting of the flesh of animals; as, animal food. Animal magnetism. See Magnetism and Mesmerism. -- Animal electricity, the electricity developed in some animals, as the electric eel, torpedo, etc. -- Animal flower (Zoöl.), a name given to certain marine animals resembling a flower, as any species of actinia or sea anemone, and other Anthozoa, hydroids, starfishes, etc. -- Animal heat (Physiol.), the heat generated in the body of a living animal, by means of which the animal is kept at nearly a uniform temperature. -- Animal spirits. See under Spirit. -- Animal kingdom, the whole class of beings endowed with animal life. It embraces several subkingdoms, and under these there are Classes, Orders, Families, Genera, Species, and sometimes intermediate groupings, all in regular subordination, but variously arranged by different writers.