venison the general term in English for the meat of deer. Originally the word applied to any furred game, but it had assumed its current meaning by the late Middle Ages.
In Britain, three species of deer are commonly used for food: the red, which is the largest, now largely confined to the Scottish Highlands; the fallow; and the roe, the smallest of the three and the one considered best by cooks. For a description of these and of the main deer in N. America, see deer.
The term ‘venison’ is often extended to the meat of other species in the deer family, including, in the USA, elk, moose, and caribou. Various types of antelope and gazelle provide meat which might loosely be described as venison in parts of Asia, throughout Africa, and in N. America.
