Veterinary medicine

Near the end of the list stands a avaliação do bem-estar animal, and the English word that carries o bem-estar is older and plainer than it looks. « Welfare » is two words grown together, « well » and « fare », and the second of them is the Old English verb faran, to travel, to get on, to turn out. To ask how somebody fared is to ask how the journey went, and « farewell » is those same two words in the other order, an imperative pressed into a parting. The traveller is still visible in « a wayfarer », in « a thoroughfare », and the money paid for a journey is « the fare ». So « animal welfare » says underneath precisely what this entry measures: whether the creature is getting on well — space, rest, feeding, freedom from pain. One consequence for anybody writing in English. « Welfare » names the public, regulated, inspected thing, written into codes and signed off on a form, while « wellbeing » names the felt state, and no inspector signs that off. O bem-estar covers both at once, so the choice has to be made here.