animal [LME] Animals are so called simply because they breathe. The word, used as an adjective in English before the noun became established, originally described any living being, as opposed to something inanimate [LME]. Its source is the Latin word animalis, ‘having the breath of life’, from anima ‘air, breath, life’. As a noun, the word was used in tandem with the older beast [ME] from Latin besta until the 17th century. Animal does not appear in the King James Bible of 1611. Animate [LME] is also from anima.