Do words for male animals include those which are castrated?

English has distinct words for the male and female of many common animal species. For example, we have bull / cow, rooster / hen, ram / ewe, stallion / mare, boar / sow, man / woman.

However, we also have words for castrated male animals (those which have had the testicles removed): steer, capon, wether, gelding, hog, eunuch.

Do the male terms include or exclude the castrated case? If I refer to a male sheep as a ram, and it later turns out to be a wether, have I spoken incorrectly or merely imprecisely?

I would be interested in common, technical, and historical usage.

Solution 1:

Properly speaking, these terms are not exclusive; for example, it is perfectly correct to describe a steer as a "castrated bull". However, "bull" is certainly not the usual term to use for a castrated bull. This is due to a process that's sometimes called "Q-based narrowing" whereby preference for a more-specific term causes avoidance of a less-specific one in certain cases. For example, a thumb is usually referred to as a "thumb", not a "finger", but no one would bat an eye at the phrase "ten fingers and ten toes".

Solution 2:

The terms are exclusive. A bull is not a steer, nor a steer a bull; similarly for the other terms. This definition is because the different variations have different roles in agriculture; a bull is used for breeding, for example, and a capon is used for eating. So if you are speaking to a farmer or rancher, you will be regarded as speaking incorrectly, not merely imprecisely.

In common usage with folks who don't work with animals often, the distinctions may not be fully appreciated and so imprecise terms may be used. For example, many North Americans at the grocery store may not appreciate the distinction between capons and hens for eating.

Solution 3:

Technically, any time there is a name for the castrated animal apart from the male name, that is the correct name to use. You would not call a steer a bull, for example, because a bull has testicles and a steer does not.

Names for castrated animals normally fall under the category of domesticated animals. Deer, for example, are not normally domesticated, and so we don't have a name for a buck that has lost its testicles. It would still be a buck even though it could not perform the duties of a buck, and so it would have to be added that it was a castrated buck.