The meat of a deer, eaten as food. It is an uncountable noun, like beef or pork: you say 'some venison' or 'a piece of venison', never 'a venison' or 'two venisons'. English does this odd thing where the animal and its meat have different names — deer becomes venison, pig becomes pork, cow becomes beef — so a menu will say venison, not 'deer meat', though 'deer meat' is understood and is what many people actually say in ordinary speech, especially in America. Venison is darker and leaner than beef, with a stronger taste that people call 'gamey'. It is not everyday food in most places: you meet it in expensive restaurants, in country cooking where people hunt, and at Christmas dinners in Europe. It sounds a little grand or old-fashioned. Long ago the word covered the meat of any animal you hunted — boar, hare, anything — and only later narrowed to deer.