Definition of sheep in English:
sheep
noun ʃiːpʃip
1A domesticated ruminant mammal with a thick woolly coat and (typically only in the male) curving horns. It is kept in flocks for its wool or meat, and is proverbial for its tendency to follow others in the flock.
Ovis aries, family Bovidae, descended from the wild mouflon
- In the summer, the wild mammals are joined by flocks of domestic sheep and goats left to graze in the meadows.
- Today, Merino wool is taken from sheep and lambs in Australia and New Zealand as well.
- A dog is still a dog with a docked tail, but would a sheep be a sheep without wool?
- Pastoralists sold sheep and cattle for meat and leather to the goldfields, and used the profits to buy freehold land and build fences and homesteads.
- The sequence follows a journey undertaken by a flock of sheep, which follows one of their number out of their field, as they tend to do.
- But the global technology recession is culling the ranks of that talent as swiftly as the men in white coats dispose of sheep and cattle on foot-and-mouth infected farms.
- They consider the desolate border area part of their territory and follow their goats, sheep and cattle there to graze.
- In the case of meat sheep versus wool sheep, wool is usually around $10 a kilo, and meat $2 a kilo.
- And so the sheep wanders from the flock and follows its own course.
- The male sheep rammed several vehicles, leaving a trail of damage in his wake, before turning his annoyance on one of the dealership's staff.
- Regardless of the time frame it is generally accepted that the domestication of cattle followed sheep, goats, and pigs.
- Driven to desperation by lack of water for his men and small flocks of sheep and cattle, Eyre had followed Aboriginal tracks to the foot of the sand dunes, where he noticed damp patches.
- In the years leading up to the crash, the cod had been evolving much like the sheep on Ram Mountain.
- Finds of animal bones reveal that the ox and the cow were domesticated as were sheep and goats (kept for meat and wool).
- Because he would not abandon the flock for a lost sheep after the others had bedded down for the night, he turned back, searched the thickets and gullies.
- My hat was raccoon, my coat was made from the skins of a flock of sheep, and I had knee-high reindeer boots.
- They used every part of the sheep, eating the meat and weaving the wool into clothing and blankets, Kady said.
- Chickens and turkeys were kept both for their eggs and meat just as sheep provided wool and meat.
- To one side was a rolling expanse of pasture land, clustered with flocks of sheep so thick that hundreds must graze there.
- Since 15 to 25 percent of male sheep in U.S. flocks don't mate, ranchers want to find a way to identify good breeding rams.
ram, ewe, lamb, wether, bellwetherBritish tupAustralian informal jumbuck, woolly- 1.1 A wild mammal related to this, such as the argali, bighorn, bharal, and urial.
- He moved on to Iceland and saw interesting sheep with long wool and leather without grease.
- The hot spot is also home to a rich variety of ungulates (animals with hooves), including the threatened argali wild sheep.
- Wildlife, including the Tibetan antelope and the Argali sheep, has also been threatened by indiscriminate hunting.
- Low, rugged mountains criss-cross the desert and are home to argali sheep and Siberian ibex.
2Used with reference to people who are too easily influenced or led.
party members should not follow their leader like sheep- Music is in itself a genre that demands difference, but easily allows for many sheep.
- Perhaps the inhabitants are sheep, easily lead around by the government etc.
- Of course not - everyone feels sorry for him, but we don't wander round beating our chests and wailing like the easily led sheep of Liverpool do…
- How many different ways can you write that the American people are a bunch of clueless sheep, led by some very cynical swine?
- I'm not a desperate, easily-imprinted sheep, after all; I don't need answers, just the right questions.
- He didn't say only the sheep whose parents make smart choices.
- That's all Caribbean politicians do, lead the sheep of state.
- Don't be a sheep and follow the flock, do something for yourselves, for God's sake.
- I'm just thankful to my bended knees that the stoned out, easily influenced hippie sheep of the day didn't buy more copies of it.
3A person regarded as a protected follower of God.
- Ultimately, we will become more like Jesus himself, who never tired of seeking his lost sheep.
- And amid all this we are to preach the gospel of salvation, gathering in the lost sheep of Christ till the church is complete.
- He risked his life for the sheep so that his father had no loss.
- What will they do when they stand before God's holy throne and watch helplessly as, one by one, many of their sheep are condemned because they were never confronted about their sins?
- They are his sheep who hear their Master's voice and follow - pleased to do all his will who saves them and keeps them by his grace.
- The church is not merely an organisation; it comprises the sheep for whom Christ died.
- The Good Shepherd lays down his life, that is gives everything for the sheep so that they are nurtured and protected.
- How happy we will be if we imitate our Good Shepherd and pastor of our souls, his sheep for whom he has done so much.
- He illustrates well how the Lord Jesus values his sheep.
- Christ not only died for the sins of His sheep on the Cross but he established their righteousness through His perfect obedience to God's Law.
- The Good Shepherd could afford to rejoice in the lost sheep that was found; His sheep did not pose a risk of legal liability.
- But, God was stronger than their weakness and continued to bring the straying sheep back to the Lord Jesus Christ.
- For He rules the universe to build His church and to shepherd His sheep with love and wisdom.
- Second, I believe that religious folk have a dual responsibility: on one hand, there is the pastoral call to feed the sheep.
- But, above all, he was one of the lost sheep whom the Lord Jesus Christ sought out and saved.
- God loves us deeply, intensely, and he cares about even the most incredibly lost and stubbornly unrepentant sheep.
- Through Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, God offers eternal life to all!
- And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
- When He sent His disciples out He told them to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
- To preach a sweet Christ to the fleshly world is the most potent poison that has been given to the dear sheep of Christ from the very beginning.
- 3.1 A member of a minister's congregation.
- The head of the parish and the leader of our services was the pastor and we, the congregation, were his sheep, or the ‘flock’.
- Wouldn't it be wonderful if you, as the shepherd of your class, could develop a whole team of shepherds to reach out to many of the drifting sheep in your congregation?
Phrases
count sheep
Count imaginary sheep jumping over a fence one by one in an attempt to send oneself to sleep.
- She crawled into her bed, prepared to count sheep, but sleep claimed her the minute her head made contact with the pillow.
- Sometimes when I went to bed I would mull over the day, and instead of counting sheep, I would count the drinks I'd had.
- When insomnia chases sleep away, counting sheep or tossing and turning all night seem to be the only alternatives.
- I started counting sheep, which didn't send me to sleep but reminded me of what I wanted to write to you about.
- I've tried every single technique - counting sheep, reciting the periodic table, counting down from 100… none of it works.
- ‘Normal people count sheep when they sleep and dream,’ Julia said.
- Oh, poor you… try counting sheep jumping over gates or something, that usually works for you.
- I had a hard time sleeping last night, and even had to resort to counting sheep.
- So, needing some beauty sleep, and thinking whilst counting sheep, I went to bed, and a magical mantra came to me in a dream (which is where my snazziest artsy notions usually pop up).
- And they forgot a few simple facts while counting sheep.
make sheep's eyes at
Look at (someone) in a foolishly amorous way.
- Munnuswamy's son, Gopala, makes sheep's eyes at Sripathi Rao's sister Putti and, what is worse, his spinster sister, quite unmindful of her superior Brahmin ancestry, simpers back.
Derivatives
sheeplike
- The progressive authors of much of America's patriotic iconography rejected blind nationalism, militaristic drumbeating and sheeplike conformism.
- New Age prophets exhort their sheeplike followers to carry out all sorts of home truths that beggar the imagination of any thinking person.
- Do we really think that juries are so sheeplike that they have to be shielded from fact and opinion?
- This powerful image of sheeplike mentality and groupthink is made all the more ominous by a jazz score filigreed with theremin sounds that eerily portend rifts in the orderly body politic.
- We must never become a nation cowed by fear, sheeplike in our submission to the power of any majority demanding absolute control.
adjective
Origin
Old English scēp, scǣp, scēap, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch schaap and German Schaf.
We have had sheep in the language since Anglo-Saxon times, but perhaps surprisingly people did not start using the word to mean ‘someone too easily influenced or led’ until the 16th century. The expression to separate the sheep from the goats, ‘to divide people or things into superior and inferior groups’, is a biblical reference to the account of the Last Judgement in the Gospel of Matthew. There the apostle describes how all the nations of the world will be gathered before God and how ‘He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.’
Rhymes
asleep, beep, bleep, cheap, cheep, creep, deep, heap, Jeep, keep, leap, neap, neep, peep, reap, seep, skin-deep, sleep, steep, Streep, sweep, veep, weep
Definition of sheep in US English:
sheep
nounʃipSHēp
1A domesticated ruminant animal with a thick woolly coat and (typically only in the male) curving horns. It is kept in flocks for its wool or meat, and is proverbial for its tendency to follow others in the flock.
Ovis aries, family Bovidae, descended from the wild mouflon
- Driven to desperation by lack of water for his men and small flocks of sheep and cattle, Eyre had followed Aboriginal tracks to the foot of the sand dunes, where he noticed damp patches.
- In the case of meat sheep versus wool sheep, wool is usually around $10 a kilo, and meat $2 a kilo.
- In the years leading up to the crash, the cod had been evolving much like the sheep on Ram Mountain.
- The male sheep rammed several vehicles, leaving a trail of damage in his wake, before turning his annoyance on one of the dealership's staff.
- They used every part of the sheep, eating the meat and weaving the wool into clothing and blankets, Kady said.
- Pastoralists sold sheep and cattle for meat and leather to the goldfields, and used the profits to buy freehold land and build fences and homesteads.
- The sequence follows a journey undertaken by a flock of sheep, which follows one of their number out of their field, as they tend to do.
- They consider the desolate border area part of their territory and follow their goats, sheep and cattle there to graze.
- And so the sheep wanders from the flock and follows its own course.
- A dog is still a dog with a docked tail, but would a sheep be a sheep without wool?
- Today, Merino wool is taken from sheep and lambs in Australia and New Zealand as well.
- Since 15 to 25 percent of male sheep in U.S. flocks don't mate, ranchers want to find a way to identify good breeding rams.
- But the global technology recession is culling the ranks of that talent as swiftly as the men in white coats dispose of sheep and cattle on foot-and-mouth infected farms.
- Chickens and turkeys were kept both for their eggs and meat just as sheep provided wool and meat.
- Finds of animal bones reveal that the ox and the cow were domesticated as were sheep and goats (kept for meat and wool).
- To one side was a rolling expanse of pasture land, clustered with flocks of sheep so thick that hundreds must graze there.
- My hat was raccoon, my coat was made from the skins of a flock of sheep, and I had knee-high reindeer boots.
- In the summer, the wild mammals are joined by flocks of domestic sheep and goats left to graze in the meadows.
- Because he would not abandon the flock for a lost sheep after the others had bedded down for the night, he turned back, searched the thickets and gullies.
- Regardless of the time frame it is generally accepted that the domestication of cattle followed sheep, goats, and pigs.
mutton- 1.1 A wild mammal related to this, such as the argali, bighorn, and urial.
- Wildlife, including the Tibetan antelope and the Argali sheep, has also been threatened by indiscriminate hunting.
- The hot spot is also home to a rich variety of ungulates (animals with hooves), including the threatened argali wild sheep.
- He moved on to Iceland and saw interesting sheep with long wool and leather without grease.
- Low, rugged mountains criss-cross the desert and are home to argali sheep and Siberian ibex.
2A person who is too easily influenced or led.
the party members had become sheep, and she refused to be taken in- How many different ways can you write that the American people are a bunch of clueless sheep, led by some very cynical swine?
- Perhaps the inhabitants are sheep, easily lead around by the government etc.
- I'm not a desperate, easily-imprinted sheep, after all; I don't need answers, just the right questions.
- Of course not - everyone feels sorry for him, but we don't wander round beating our chests and wailing like the easily led sheep of Liverpool do…
- He didn't say only the sheep whose parents make smart choices.
- That's all Caribbean politicians do, lead the sheep of state.
- Music is in itself a genre that demands difference, but easily allows for many sheep.
- Don't be a sheep and follow the flock, do something for yourselves, for God's sake.
- I'm just thankful to my bended knees that the stoned out, easily influenced hippie sheep of the day didn't buy more copies of it.
3A person regarded as a protected follower of God.
- Christ not only died for the sins of His sheep on the Cross but he established their righteousness through His perfect obedience to God's Law.
- The Good Shepherd could afford to rejoice in the lost sheep that was found; His sheep did not pose a risk of legal liability.
- For He rules the universe to build His church and to shepherd His sheep with love and wisdom.
- And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
- Through Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, God offers eternal life to all!
- But, above all, he was one of the lost sheep whom the Lord Jesus Christ sought out and saved.
- How happy we will be if we imitate our Good Shepherd and pastor of our souls, his sheep for whom he has done so much.
- To preach a sweet Christ to the fleshly world is the most potent poison that has been given to the dear sheep of Christ from the very beginning.
- They are his sheep who hear their Master's voice and follow - pleased to do all his will who saves them and keeps them by his grace.
- Second, I believe that religious folk have a dual responsibility: on one hand, there is the pastoral call to feed the sheep.
- Ultimately, we will become more like Jesus himself, who never tired of seeking his lost sheep.
- What will they do when they stand before God's holy throne and watch helplessly as, one by one, many of their sheep are condemned because they were never confronted about their sins?
- But, God was stronger than their weakness and continued to bring the straying sheep back to the Lord Jesus Christ.
- The church is not merely an organisation; it comprises the sheep for whom Christ died.
- When He sent His disciples out He told them to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
- The Good Shepherd lays down his life, that is gives everything for the sheep so that they are nurtured and protected.
- And amid all this we are to preach the gospel of salvation, gathering in the lost sheep of Christ till the church is complete.
- God loves us deeply, intensely, and he cares about even the most incredibly lost and stubbornly unrepentant sheep.
- He risked his life for the sheep so that his father had no loss.
- He illustrates well how the Lord Jesus values his sheep.
- 3.1 A member of a minister's congregation.
- The head of the parish and the leader of our services was the pastor and we, the congregation, were his sheep, or the ‘flock’.
- Wouldn't it be wonderful if you, as the shepherd of your class, could develop a whole team of shepherds to reach out to many of the drifting sheep in your congregation?
Phrases
count sheep
Count imaginary sheep jumping over a fence one by one in an attempt to put oneself to sleep.
- So, needing some beauty sleep, and thinking whilst counting sheep, I went to bed, and a magical mantra came to me in a dream (which is where my snazziest artsy notions usually pop up).
- I had a hard time sleeping last night, and even had to resort to counting sheep.
- When insomnia chases sleep away, counting sheep or tossing and turning all night seem to be the only alternatives.
- Sometimes when I went to bed I would mull over the day, and instead of counting sheep, I would count the drinks I'd had.
- I started counting sheep, which didn't send me to sleep but reminded me of what I wanted to write to you about.
- Oh, poor you… try counting sheep jumping over gates or something, that usually works for you.
- ‘Normal people count sheep when they sleep and dream,’ Julia said.
- She crawled into her bed, prepared to count sheep, but sleep claimed her the minute her head made contact with the pillow.
- I've tried every single technique - counting sheep, reciting the periodic table, counting down from 100… none of it works.
- And they forgot a few simple facts while counting sheep.
make sheep's eyes at
Look at (someone) in a foolishly amorous way.
- Munnuswamy's son, Gopala, makes sheep's eyes at Sripathi Rao's sister Putti and, what is worse, his spinster sister, quite unmindful of her superior Brahmin ancestry, simpers back.
Origin
Old English scēp, scǣp, scēap, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch schaap and German Schaf.