The Collaborative International Dictionary
Zebu \Ze"bu\, n. [?. z['e]bu; of uncertain origin.] (Zo["o]l.) A bovine mammal ( Ros Indicus) extensively domesticated in India, China, the East Indies, and East Africa. It usually has short horns, large pendulous ears, slender legs, a large dewlap, and a large, prominent hump over the shoulders; but these characters vary in different domestic breeds, which range in size from that of the common ox to that of a large mastiff.
Note: Some of the varieties are used as beasts of burden, and some fore for riding, while others are raised for their milk and flesh. The Brahmin bull, regarded as sacred by the Hindoos, also belongs to this species. The male is called also Indian bull, Indian ox, Madras ox, and sacred bull.
Usage examples of "sacred bull".
But the blood of the lamb was originally the blood of the sacred bull.
While believing in no god she fearlessly and with ironic condescension receives all gods into her courts: from faraway fire-worshiping Persia, Mithras the sun-faced son of Ahuramazda, mounted on the sacred bull which is soon to die.
The Minotaur was born of the sacred bull, which was Poseidon's incarnation.
Now, the apse was empty of Mithras slaying the sacred bull and Mary holding the infant Christ.
There's a case to be made for calling us cocky, you must understand, we the brave soldiery of the thrice-accursed Sacred Bull that runs us across the board like pawns until at last the paint wears thin and the glue cracks and the head comes off and they throw us away, for calling us cocky, yes, as we work our way through the labyrinth, meeting so often face to face with our grinning fate that we lose much of our fear and become irrational in the heat of crisis, and this, my good friend, was a crisis, because the executive had moved deliberately into the surveillance field of the opposition and attracted its attention and the opposition was not .
But Egerton could have refused to direct him if he'd chosen, instead of which he'd been party to the decision to use an innocent for their own ends: for the ends of the Bureau, a sacrifice to the sacred bull.
The Bureau is the sacred bull, and if you're in the shadow branch you're expected to make any sacrifice at any time its bloody disciples demand it of you, even unto death.