Just about any toddler can tell you that a baby dog is called a puppy. Ask what a cat gives birth to, and you get ... a kitten, obviously. Well, not so fast. Yes, house cats give birth to kittens. But if it’s a lion, you get a cub. Tigers, too, have cubs, but you can also call their babies whelps.
Most of the animals on our planet have a designated term (or multiple) for their offspring. Plenty of these names are straightforward: You say chicken, I say chick. Many of them sound adorable. Some are straight-up odd and unexpected.
(Credit: Dave Pusey/Shutterstock)
Dave Pusey/Shutterstock
Either way, each of these terms is attached to their respective animal for a unique reason. “There is no single principle,” says Anatoly Liberman, an expert on word origins at the University of Minnesota. “Every word has its own history.”
We rounded up some of ...
