These words come into comparison in denoting domesticated cattle, whether raised for milk and meat or used as draught animals. Ox is a general term when it is used in zoology to refer to any bovine animal, whether wild or tame. Specifically an ox is an adult castrated male, once widely used to pull carts and ploughs but now common only in underdeveloped countries. Bullock and steer are also adult castrated males, but bullock is more closely related in meaning to ox in that bullock also suggests a draught animal, whereas steers are raised, usually in large herds, for their beef and hides.

A bull is an adult uncastrated male kept usually for breeding purposes only. In Spain and Spanish America special strains of cattle are bred to provide bulls for the ring.

Cow and heifer denote female bovines. The cow is the mature female of any variety of cattle, but the word calls to mind the familiar animal that is kept as a milk producer on most farms. Heifer is a young cow , especially one less than three years old who has not yet produced young or given milk.

Calf is the newborn or very young offspring of the cow , and the term applies to either sex. Bull , cow and calf are also used to denote the male, female and young of a number of unrelated animals such as elephants, whales, moose, walruses and alligators. A vealer is a bovine calf , usually under a year old, raised to the produce veal.

With various implications, ox , bull , cow and calf are applied figuratively to human beings. Ox suggests slowness, clumsiness and slow-wittedness: as dumb as an ox ; as big as an ox . Bull emphasizes brutish masculine strength and virility: to roar like a bull ; a wrestler with the strength of a bull . In some English-speaking countries, cow is applied in a derisive way to an obese and coarse woman, and may also have the sense of a prostitute. The awkwardness and bumbling of a calf is evoked when the term, now literary and obsolescent, is used of a gawky, callow young man.

In a strongly condemnatory sense, cow is an epithet used by many Australians and New Zealanders to describe any sort of person or situation; He’s the stingiest cow in the office; some stupid cow left the tap turned on; I’ll have to work on Sunday – what a cow !; Painting the ceiling is a cow of a job.