animals

Yes. In the broadest sense "animal" can be used of any living creature, although it is also used in much narrower senses - "animals as distinct from fish", and "animals as distinct from humans"

Any living creature? Not a plant or herb, right? "animals as dictinct from fish"? Does that mean the narrower sense - only those four-leged ones (or maybe a little broader than that since I'm not an expert) on land?

Hi? Could you please give further information?

Sorry, I wasn't making myself clear. The difficulty is that in English we use the noun "animal" in several different senses, each narrower than the last:

1. A living creature. In this sense we can divide the whole of nature into three categories - animal, vegetable and mineral, and we can say "Homo sapiens is an animal".

2. A living creature other than a human being. It is this sense that is used when we speak of "cruelty to animals", or ask "do animals have souls?"

3. A mammal (other than a human being). If you were to point at a goldfish and a beetle and ask a child "are those animals?" the child might well say "No, one is a fish and one is an insect".