Deer is the preferred plural form of deer, ahoofed mammal. Deer are ruminants. In most types of deer, only the males produce antlers. Deer antlers are shedannually. Some species of deer are white-tailed deer, red deer, caribou, moose, fallow deer, mule deer, roe deer and elk.
Deers is an accepted plural, but it is rarely used.
The word deer comes from the Old English word, deor, which means four-legged animal, beast. Also the Dutch word, dier and the German word, tier.
Deer is one of a set of words with irregular plural forms, such as sheep and fish.
Examples
Officials recently said Michigan’s 2014 deer hunting harvest was down about 15 percent from 2013, due in part to severe winter weather in recent years. (The Detroit News)
The company sells breeding stock, while trying to improve offspring to produce male deer, known as bucks, with the big antlers and other characteristics often favored by hunters and game farms. (The Journal Times)
“The number of deer harvested hit a low in the early 1970s at below 100,000 statewide,” Creagh said. (The Daily Journal)
“People assume deer will learn to look both ways, and the dumb ones will be selected out of the population,” said Sandra Jacobson, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Davis, California. (Helena Independent Record)
According to the details submitted to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change by Gujarat forest department, the floods claimed lives a whopping 1,670 blue bulls (nilgai), 80 spotted deers, around 10 black bucks and even wild boars that all form the prey base of Asiatic lions. (Daily News and Analysis India)
As a result, unexploded ordnance litters the 18sq km area, posing a threat to the deers, boar and foxes that roam its lands – as well as humans. (The Guardian)
