Etymology 1

Noun

1. hunting for wild animals.
   • 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.

2. Game animals.