beast of venery

English

Etymology

beast + of + venery

Noun

beast of venery (plural beasts of venery)

1. A game animal.
   • 1963, Thomas Pynchon, V.:

     But soon enough he’d wake up the second, real time, to make again the tiresome discovery that it hadn’t really ever stopped being the same simple-minded, literal pursuit; V. ambiguously a beast of venery, chased like the hart, hind or hare, chased like an obsolete, or bizarre, or forbidden form of sexual delight.