subs. (old colloquial).—A calf: cf. MUTTON, BEEF: in English these terms are now restricted to the dead carcase and not applied to the living animal, as in French and other languages.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Veël, A calfe or VEALE.
PHRASES. ‘VEAL will be cheap, calves fall’ (a jeer at those with spindly legs); ‘In a shoulder of VEAL, there are twenty and two good bits’ (RAY: a piece of country wit—there are twenty [others say forty] bits in a shoulder of veal, and but two good ones).
