Question

At the beginning of tractate Bava Kamma: “There are four primary categories of damages: the ox, the pit, the mav’eh, and the fire. The law of the ox is not like the law of the mav’eh, and the law of the mav’eh is not like the law of the ox; and the law of these, which have life in them, is not like the law of fire, which has no life in it; and the law of both these, whose way is to go and cause damage, is not like the law of the pit, whose way is not to go and cause damage.”
And some of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) noted that the Tanna did not spell out the stringency of the ox relative to mav’eh, or the stringency of mav’eh relative to the ox, in the way that he did explain the stringency of both of them relative to fire. And the Meiri there wrote in explanation that at this stage it had not yet been clarified what mav’eh means, and therefore he did not explain its stringency relative to the ox, or the ox’s stringency relative to it. His words are: “And he did not mention those matters in our Mishnah because the meaning of mav’eh had not yet been clarified for him.”
At first glance, his words are puzzling, because the Tanna certainly knew the meaning of “mav’eh,” since he himself taught “mav’eh.” How could he say something whose meaning he did not know?
Perhaps one can explain this along the lines of the Raavad, who wrote: “Our Rabbis taught: ‘If I prepared part of the damage, I am liable for payment of the damage as though I had prepared all of the damage.’ How so? If one dug a pit nine handbreadths deep, etc. I am astonished by these strange formulations used in this Mishnah. Why did they choose here the expression ‘prepared,’ which is really a term of damage? And furthermore, why did they use the term ‘mav’eh,’ neither ‘man’ nor ‘tooth’? The truth seems to me to be that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, who edited the Mishnah, heard one source teaching ‘man,’ and heard another teaching ‘tooth,’ and fixed a wording that could fit both of them.”
This still requires further thought. I’d be glad to hear your opinion.