The Etymology of
ANIMA→ANIMAL
The Word That Named Every Creature That Breathes
Breath. Soul. The invisible force that separates the living from the dead.
The Breath of Life
Ancient Greece & Rome • 350 BCE – 100 CE
Roman inscription from the Temple of Vesta—where eternal flames symbolized living breath
The story begins not with beasts, but with breath. In ancient Rome, the word anima meant the breath of life—the invisible vapor that entered a body at birth and departed at death. It was the soul made manifest in respiration.
breath, soul, life force, the vital principle
From Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- meaning 'to breathe'
The Romans derived animalis from anima—meaning "having breath" or "having a soul." At first, this included humans. We too were animalia: creatures possessed of the breath that signified life.
Greek philosophical traditions that shaped Roman understanding of the soul
But it was Aristotle, writing in Greek a century before Rome's linguistic dominance, who first systematically categorized living things. His word was zōion (ζῷον)—literally "living being"—from which we inherit "zoology."
Aristotle divided nature into three kingdoms: things that grow (plants), things that feel (animals), and things that reason (humans). The animal was defined by sensation and voluntary movement—the ability to perceive and to act.
The soul is the cause and principle of the living body... it is that by which we live, perceive, and think.
— Aristotle, De Anima, 350 BCE
having breath; pertaining to living creatures
From anima + suffix -alis (pertaining to)
When Latin scholars translated Aristotle's zōion, they chose animalis. The Greek focus on "living" became the Roman focus on "breathing." This subtle shift would echo through two millennia.
Before we named them by their forms, we named them by their breath. The taxonomy was theological before it was biological.
Beasts & Bestiaries
Medieval Europe • 500 – 1500 CE
Medieval bestiary illumination—where animals taught moral lessons
In medieval Europe, the Latin animal transformed. Christianity collapsed Aristotle's three categories into two: humans (with immortal souls) and animals (with merely animal souls—mortal, extinguished at death).
The word became a boundary. To call something an "animal" was to place it below humanity—soulful enough to live, but not enough to be saved.
The lion in medieval bestiaries represented Christ—even beasts served divine symbolism
Yet this same era produced the bestiaries: gorgeously illustrated manuscripts cataloging real and mythical animals. The lion symbolized Christ. The pelican represented sacrifice. The unicorn was purity incarnate.
For medieval scholars, animals existed not as biological specimens but as moral lessons—each creature a letter in God's alphabet, spelling out divine truth.
Animals are so called because they are animated by life and moved by spirit.
— Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, c. 630 CE
The Old French animal entered English around the 14th century, initially as a learned term used by scholars. Common folk still said "beast" (from Latin bestia) or "creature" (from creatura, "something created").
a living being other than a human; a beast
From Old French animal, from Latin animalis
The medieval animal was half biology, half theology—a breathing sermon in fur and feather.
The Cabinet of Curiosities
Renaissance & Early Modern • 1450 – 1700
Cabinets of curiosities—where collectors displayed the wonders of the natural world
The Renaissance brought rediscovery: ancient Greek and Roman texts, but also new lands, new species, new questions. European explorers returned with armadillos, hummingbirds, opossums—creatures that fit no medieval category.
The word animal began its slow migration from theology to natural philosophy. In cabinets of curiosities, nobles displayed specimens not as moral exemplars but as objects of wonder and study.
Natural history illustration—observation replacing symbolism
Artists like Albrecht Dürer and Conrad Gessner depicted animals with unprecedented accuracy. Dürer's rhinoceros (1515), drawn from descriptions alone, became more famous than any living specimen. Gessner's Historia Animalium (1551-1558) attempted to catalog every known creature.
Comparative anatomy revealed hidden connections across species
The question changed. Medieval scholars asked: what does this animal mean? Renaissance naturalists asked: what is this animal? How does it move, eat, reproduce? What is its place in nature?
But classification remained chaotic. Was a bat a bird? Was a whale a fish? The very definition of "animal" needed reinvention.
Wonder replaced worship. The animal became a puzzle to solve, not a sermon to interpret.
Animalia
The Linnaean Revolution • 1758
Systema Naturae—the book that gave every living thing a Latin name
Carl Linnaeus changed everything. In 1735, the Swedish botanist published Systema Naturae, a slim catalog that would grow through twelve editions into the foundation of modern taxonomy.
Linnaeus formalized what had been chaos. He divided nature into three kingdoms: Animalia, Vegetabilia, and Mineralia. For the first time, "animal" had a precise scientific boundary.
The taxonomic kingdom comprising all animals
Linnaeus's 10th edition of Systema Naturae established binomial nomenclature
Natural history specimens—the evidence base for Linnaean classification
Linnaeus's definition was clear: animals are organisms that move voluntarily, sense their environment, and consume organic matter. They are distinguished from plants (which grow but do not move) and minerals (which do neither).
Crucially, Linnaeus placed humans firmly within Animalia. We were Homo sapiens—the "wise man"—but animals nonetheless. The theological boundary between human and beast had been crossed by science.
I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character by which to distinguish between Man and Ape.
— Carl Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, 1758
This was revolutionary—and controversial. Linnaeus had used the ancient Latin animalis not to separate humans from beasts, but to unite them. The word's original meaning—"having breath"—now included every breathing creature without theological hierarchy.
The Evolution of a Word
Science reclaimed the word. The hierarchy of souls collapsed into the democracy of species.
Descent with Modification
The Darwinian Revolution • 1859
Darwin's finches—variation within a kind
If Linnaeus arranged life into a system, Darwin explained how it got that way. On the Origin of Species (1859) proposed that all animals shared common ancestry—that the kingdom Animalia was not a divine filing system but a family tree.
The word animal suddenly meant something deeper: not just "having breath," but "descended from breath-havers." Every animal was cousin to every other, separated only by millions of years and millions of mutations.
The tree of life—Darwin's radical insight that all life is connected
Darwin's only illustration in Origin was a branching diagram—the now-iconic tree of life. He showed that species were not fixed categories but temporary snapshots of an endless process of change.
The animal kingdom became the animal family. And humans, far from being set apart, were revealed as particularly clever apes—recently evolved, sharing 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees.
We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits.
— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 1871
The fossil record—ancestors frozen in stone
The etymology now carried evolutionary weight. Anima—breath—was the common inheritance of all animal life, passed down through billions of years from the first oxygen-breathing organisms.
We are animals not by category but by ancestry. The word became a family name.
Kingdom Animalia Today
Modern Biology • 1950 – Present
DNA sequencing reveals the molecular definition of 'animal'
Modern biology has both complicated and clarified the meaning of "animal." DNA sequencing allows us to trace ancestry with precision impossible for Linnaeus or Darwin. The kingdom Animalia is now defined by molecular characteristics.
Animals are eukaryotes (cells with nuclei), heterotrophs (consuming other organisms for energy), and multicellular. They lack cell walls (unlike plants), develop from a blastula (a hollow ball of cells), and most are motile at some life stage.
Any member of the kingdom Animalia; a multicellular eukaryotic organism that develops from a blastula and is typically capable of voluntary movement
Current scientific and colloquial usage
The extraordinary diversity of Animalia—from tardigrades to blue whales
The numbers are staggering. Animalia includes approximately 1.5 million described species—and perhaps 8 million yet to be cataloged. From tardigrades measuring 0.1mm to blue whales at 30 meters, from jellyfish without brains to humans with the most complex ones.
Yet all share that ancient quality: they breathe, in some form. Even animals without lungs—fish, insects, worms—exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide. The Latin anima persists at the molecular level.
Modern research continues to expand our understanding of animal life
Today, "animal" serves multiple meanings simultaneously. In everyday speech, it often excludes humans—we say "humans and animals" as if we were separate. In scientific usage, we are undeniably included.
The word has also expanded metaphorically. We call someone a "party animal" or say they have "animal instincts." The ancient association with vitality, appetite, and physicality survives in every usage.
From breath to biology, from soul to sequence—the word evolved with our understanding, and carries every layer still.
The Breath Remains
You are witnessing anima made flesh.
The breath that named a kingdom.