AN'IMAL, noun [Latin animal from anima, air, breath, soul.]

An organized body, endowed with life and the power of voluntary motion; a living, sensitive, locomotive body; as, man is an intelligent animal Animals are essentially distinguished from plants by the property of sensation. The contractile property of some plants, as the mimosa, has the appearance of the effect of sensation, but it may be merely the effect of irritability.

The distinction here made between animals and vegetables, may not be philosophically accurate; for we cannot perhaps ascertain the precise limit between the two kinds of beings, but this is sufficiently correct for common practical purposes.

The history of animals is called zoology.

By way of contempt, a dull person is called a stupid animal

AN'IMAL, adjective That belongs or relates to animals; as animal functions.

Animal is distinguished from intellectual; as animal appetites, the appetites of the body, as hunger and thirst.

The animal functions, are touch, taste, motion, etc.

Animal life is opposed to vegetable life.

Animal is opposed also to spiritual or rational, which respects the soul and reasoning faculties; as animal nature, spiritual nature, rational nature.

Animal food may signify that food which nourishes animals; but it usually denotes food consisting of animal flesh.

Animal economy is the system of laws by which the bodies of animals are governed and depending on their organic structure.

Animal spirit is a name given to the nervous fluid.

Animal spirits in the plural, life, vigor, energy.

Animal system, or animal kingdom denotes the whole class of beings endowed with animal life.