Illustrative Context

What animal does this meat come from?

Target Sense

• The most generic term for meat as the edible flesh of animals, prototypically: the ‘red’ meat of mid-sized land-mammals such as sheep, already cut from the animal’s body.
• The lexeme selected must normally be applicable to the meat of mammals (except in languages from cultures and regions where the default meat and the most basic term applies to a different type of animal).
• In many languages, as in English, the same basic lexeme will cover a wide range of contexts and types of ‘meat’. Where a language has no broad cover term, but only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for different contexts/types, in the following or any other cases, then always fall back on the most generic lexeme that includes within its scope the prototypical case as defined above.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for the flesh of a living animal vs. the meat of one already killed, then select the latter.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for the meat still on the animal’s body vs. already cut off it (in preparation for cooking or storage), then select the latter.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for raw meat not yet cooked vs. already cooked meat, then select the former.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for meat of different forms or colours , e.g. for the ‘red meat’ of most large mammals vs. the ‘white’ meat of poultry, then select the term for the ‘red meat’ type.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for the meats of mid-sized land animals, of birds, of fish or acquatic animals, and/or of insects, then select the term for the meat of mid-sized land animals.
  • If a language has only distinct, mutually exclusive lexemes for the meats of reared domesticates vs. hunted wild animals (‘game’), then select the term for whichever is the more basic among speakers of the language: typically this will be reared meat among farming communities, hunted meat among foragers.
• The target meaning is the literal one of meat as the physical flesh of animals. Do not select lexemes that refer to food more broadly (the oldest sense of the lexeme meat in English, as still in mincemeat). Also, do not select lexemes that refer predominantly to figurative extensions, e.g. ‘meat’ in the sense of sustenance or the core (‘meat’) of an issue.