Is "Cow" more popular than "Cattle"

Cattle is a plural noun. It refers to domesticated animals of the bovine family, which often means cows, especially in the West. A cow is a countable noun and it refers to one animal of the 'cow' species. 'Cows' and 'cattle' can by synonyms, but not always. As for which is more common, it depends on how you are using the word, but the answer is almost definitely 'cows'. I can do a corpora search if you like?

Just to note that 'cow' does not NECESSARILY refer to the bovine animal. It is also used to refer to female elephants and whales, amongst others.

I'd say from my experience that both of these words are equally known among English speakers. However, it is common in casual speech for someone to call a group of cattle "cows," even though "cow" technically means a female animal. As someone who has grown up in the United States, I can tell you that if someone on a car ride drives by cattle in a field, they're more likely to yell "cows!" than "cattle!" So in casual speech, yes, it might be more popular, but I'd say most English speakers are equally familiar with both words.  It's also interesting to note that cartoon or toy depictions of cattle almost always have udders for some reason. So you'll see a whole lot of stuff labeled as "cows" as a result. 

"Cattle" if you own the farm, "Cows" if you buy the beef. In other words,  "cattle" is an industry term.

Short answer is yes. ‘Cow’ is used in a lot of ways, but the *main* way it is used is to refer to the female domesticated bovine animal. Really, it brings to mind the classic image of a cow, like in the emoji 🐄. It is the general colloquial term for the animal, though. I grew up in an area where dairy farming is very prevalent. Since people around me were dairy farmers and not really ‘beef’ farmers, I think bulls seemed rather rare, and if you saw one you’d refer to it as a bull 🐂. A bit like how the rooster in a chicken coop is distinctive from the rest of the hens. Their main role is for breeding, I’d imagine, so my elementary school tours of dairy farms didn’t always include one. I do think it would be strange to refer to a singular bull as a ‘cow’. At the same time, if my family and I were driving past a group of cattle in a field where only one or two of them was a bull… I’d still say it’s a group of ‘cows’ unless the majority of them were clearly male. ‘Cattle’ isn’t anywhere close in usage to my ears, even though it’s a better plural noun for a group of mixed gender. It sounds a bit technical and where “Cows!” might sound adorable, “Cattle!” sounds very cold and odd. Most kids don’t learn what ‘cattle’ are, they learn what ‘cows’ are! Apologies if that’s a confusing or unhelpful response.

Cow is as I understand it only the females, male cows are called bulls and the whole species are called cattle.

Cows is the more common term by far in the UK. Not sure about the US but in the UK you'd only hear cattle used in formal prose etc or probably in the farming industry.

You’ve gotten some mediocre answers from a bunch of people who don’t actually work with cattle or livestock. **Cattle** is just the plural of **ox** or **cow.** *Ox* is the gender neutral singular word for a *cow,* but has been widely replaced in common usage by *cow* since most people kept cows not *bulls* (males) or *steers* (castrated males). Sheep are ovine. Goats are caprine. Cattle are bovine. Pigs are porcine. Those are not interchangeable. If you want a group term, cloven hooved animals are *ungulates* and that includes deer and antelope, or *livestock* to refer to the types of domestic animals that live on farms and ranches (this is not limited to hooved animals or mammals and can include ducks, chickens, etc). Cattle is a well known term amongst people who don’t work with or own livestock. “Look, there’s a herd of cattle in that field” is perfectly normal and natural for anyone to say. Cows is inappropriate if you don’t know whether all the animals are female, but is an understandable error that children and non-native speakers might make. It is appropriate if all the adult cattle are female — eg *Bob owns 350 head of dairy cows and he leases a bull for two months in the spring.* If you want more specific terms: - Newborn = calf - Young female up to around 2 years or her first calf = heifer - Young male = bull calf - Adult female = cow - Castrated male = steer - Adult male = bull - Individual of unspecified sex = ox - Multiple individuals of unspecified sex = oxen (nowadays typically only used for small quantities like “a pair of oxen”) Many other animals use *bull* for male and *cow* for female and *calf* for offspring, so context is important (so you don’t get confused about a whale calf or a bull moose) Cow can be used as an insult to people. Cattle used to just mean property, but that usage is obsolete and would only been seen in documents from hundreds of years ago.

Yes

I grew up in a farming community. To us, cows were used to describe the animals on a dairy farm (including the bulls, which are male) and cattle were used to describe beef cows and bulls.

Yes, but this is because the majority of cattle the average person comes across are cows. Cattle is plural and non-gendered Cow is a female Bull is a male. Steer is a male that has been castrated (used for meat usually) There are others but I don't know all the nuances.

Is common usage, almost always Cow/Cows is what people say

I’m going to be that annoying person and say that technically when referring to bovines, cow is specifically for females that have given birth. Female bovines that haven’t given birth are heifers. But, as other people have mentioned, people often say ‘cow’ to mean any singular bovine of either sex. If you’re speaking to anyone familiar with livestock though, they should use the correct terms.