sheep

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: shēp, IPA^(key): /ʃiːp/

• Audio (Received Pronunciation):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ʃip/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːp

Inherited from Middle English schep, schepe, from Anglian Old English sċēp, a variant of sċēap, from Proto-West Germanic *skāp, from Proto-Germanic *skēpą , of unknown origin.

Perhaps from the same Scythian word (compare Ossetian цӕу (cæw, “goat”), Persian چپش (čapiš, “yearling goat”))^[1] which was borrowed into Albanian as cjap, sqap (“buck”) and into Slavic (compare Polish cap). After Kroonen, *skēpą is instead from the root of Proto-Germanic *skabaną (“to scratch”) via Kluge's law.^[2]

See also West Frisian skiep, North Frisian schäip, Dutch schaap, German Schaf), beside Proto-Germanic *keppô (compare Old Norse kjappi (“buck”), dialectal German Kippe (“newborn calf”)).

• shoop (slang, chiefly humorous)
• sheepe (obsolete)

sheep (countable and uncountable, plural sheep or (nonstandard, humorous or childish) sheeps)

1. (countable) A woolly ruminant of the genus Ovis.
2. (countable, strictly) A member of the domestic species Ovis aries, the most well-known species of Ovis.
3. (countable) A timid, shy person who is easily led by others.

   Synonyms: lamb, ovine; see also Thesaurus:shy person

4. (countable, chiefly Christianity, chiefly plural) A religious adherent, a member of a congregation or religious community (compare flock).
   • 1990, Dave Mustaine, "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due", Megadeth, Rust in Peace.

     And fools like me, who cross the sea and come to foreign lands / Ask the sheep, for their beliefs do you kill on God's command?

5. (uncountable) Sheepskin leather.
6. (countable, speech recognition) A person who is easily understood by a speech recognition system; contrasted with goat.

• See also Thesaurus:sheep

• Tok Pisin: sipsip (reduplication)
  • → Rotokas: sipisipi
• → Abenaki: azib (from "a sheep")
• → Chuukese: siip
• → Coeur d'Alene: sip
• → Quiripi: sheeps

• Sheep on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Sheep (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Ovis on Wikispecies.Wikispecies

sheep

1. (chiefly humorous) plural of shoop

• Ephes., HEPES, heeps, shepe

sheep

1. Alternative form of schep

Inherited from Middle English schep, from Old English scēap.

• IPA^(key): [ʃip]

sheep (plural sheep)

1. sheep (woolly ruminant of the genus Ovis)

• schap, scheep, schepe, scheip, schip

sheep

1. Alternative form of zheep
   • 1867, “A YOLA ZONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 9, page 88:

     Wourlok'd an anooree, lick lhuskès o' sheep.

     Tumbled on one-another, like flocks of sheep.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 88