animal

Picture a Roman noticing that a living body is warm, moving, and—most mysteriously—breathing: that breath was anima, a word that could also mean “soul” or a moving current of air. Latin turned it into animāle, literally a “breathing thing,” and medieval English borrowed animal through Old French in the early 14th century. For centuries, animal could include human beings; only later did everyday English push it toward “nonhuman creature,” displacing older English deer, which once meant any animal at all. The same breath-root still animates words such as animate, animation, and inanimate—so an animated film is, etymologically, one in which drawings are made to seem alive. And when someone is called an animal, the word may swing from biological precision to insult: the ancient distinction between breathing life and rational thought is still hiding inside the compliment or accusation.