The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sheep \Sheep\, n. sing. & pl. [OE. shep, scheep, AS. sc?p, sce['a]p; akin to OFries. sk?p, LG. & D. schaap, G. schaf, OHG. sc[=a]f, Skr. ch[=a]ga. [root]295. Cf. Sheepherd.]
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(Zo["o]l.) Any one of several species of ruminants of the genus Ovis, native of the higher mountains of both hemispheres, but most numerous in Asia.
Note: The domestic sheep ( Ovis aries) varies much in size, in the length and texture of its wool, the form and size of its horns, the length of its tail, etc. It was domesticated in prehistoric ages, and many distinct breeds have been produced; as the merinos, celebrated for their fine wool; the Cretan sheep, noted for their long horns; the fat-tailed, or Turkish, sheep, remarkable for the size and fatness of the tail, which often has to be supported on trucks; the Southdowns, in which the horns are lacking; and an Asiatic breed which always has four horns.
A weak, bashful, silly fellow.
--Ainsworth.-
pl. Fig.: The people of God, as being under the government and protection of Christ, the great Shepherd.
Rocky mountain sheep.(Zo["o]l.) See Bighorn.
Maned sheep. (Zo["o]l.) See Aoudad.
Sheep bot (Zo["o]l.), the larva of the sheep botfly. See Estrus.
Sheep dog (Zo["o]l.), a shepherd dog, or collie.
Sheep laurel (Bot.), a small North American shrub ( Kalmia angustifolia) with deep rose-colored flowers in corymbs.
Sheep pest (Bot.), an Australian plant ( Ac[ae]na ovina) related to the burnet. The fruit is covered with barbed spines, by which it adheres to the wool of sheep.
Sheep run, an extensive tract of country where sheep range and graze.
Sheep's beard (Bot.), a cichoraceous herb ( Urospermum Dalechampii) of Southern Europe; -- so called from the conspicuous pappus of the achenes.
Sheep's bit (Bot.), a European herb ( Jasione montana) having much the appearance of scabious.
Sheep pox (Med.), a contagious disease of sheep, characterixed by the development of vesicles or pocks upon the skin.
Sheep scabious. (Bot.) Same as Sheep's bit.
Sheep shears, shears in which the blades form the two ends of a steel bow, by the elasticity of which they open as often as pressed together by the hand in cutting; -- so called because used to cut off the wool of sheep.
Sheep sorrel. (Bot.), a prerennial herb ( Rumex Acetosella) growing naturally on poor, dry, gravelly soil. Its leaves have a pleasant acid taste like sorrel.
Sheep's-wool (Zo["o]l.), the highest grade of Florida commercial sponges ( Spongia equina, variety gossypina).
Sheep tick (Zo["o]l.), a wingless parasitic insect ( Melophagus ovinus) belonging to the Diptera. It fixes its proboscis in the skin of the sheep and sucks the blood, leaving a swelling. Called also sheep pest, and sheep louse.
Sheep walk, a pasture for sheep; a sheep run.
Wild sheep. (Zo["o]l.) See Argali, Mouflon, and O["o]rial.
WordNet
n. undomesticated sheep
Usage examples of "wild sheep".
In eastern Europe and Asia there were hippos, wild sheep, and goat, red, roe, and fallow deer, boar, asses, wolves, hyenas, and jackals.
Its chief was Yelma Scarpe, and in the ten years she had led the clan she had annexed land from Bannen and Dregg and taken control of an escarpment that Clan Orrl had held for eight decades and was a prime site for hunting and spotting wild sheep.
The different stock were kept apart, for wild sheep and bullocks would not have got on together at all.
In the extremity of their terror whole flocks of wild sheep have been driven over precipices and into quagmires and torrents.
Sixty feet away, Erik sketched rapidly to catch both the wariness and the acceptance of the wild sheep.
They reached the first valley, crossed it, and continued on into the ragged northern hills beyond - a rough, desolate land of tumbled rock and deeply eroded ravines inhabited only by herds of tough little mountain goats and flocks of wild sheep.
It is a place of wild sheep and eagles, red deer, heather, gorse, and little else.