Sound made by animals cherished (4)
I believe the answer is:
dear
'cherished' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sound made by animals' is the wordplay.
'sound made by' shows a homophone (sound like).
'animals' becomes 'deer'.
'deer' sounds like 'DEAR'.
(Other definitions for dear that I've seen before include "Highly priced" , "At a high cost" , "close" , "Expensive -- honey" , "Darling" .)