sheep

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Meaning

A woolly ruminant of the genus Ovis.
A member of the domestic species Ovis aries, the most well-known species of Ovis.
A timid, shy person who is easily led by others.
A religious adherent, a member of a congregation or religious community (compare flock).
Sheepskin leather.
A person who is easily understood by a speech recognition system; contrasted with goat.

Ovis aries

domestic animals

young goat

running dog

disbudding

mammary of cow

or goat

sheep’s

domestic sheep

longwool

sheep’s skin

lead cattle

breggo

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʃiːp/

Inherited from Middle English

Inherited from Old English

Cognate with Western Frisian

Cognate with Northern Frisian

Cognate with Dutch

Cognate with German

Cognate with Old Norse

Cognate with German

Cognate with Ossetic

Cognate with Persian

Cognate with Albanian

Cognate with Polish

In summary

From Middle English schep, schepe, from Anglian Old English sċēp, a variant of sċēap, from Proto-West Germanic *skāp, from Proto-Germanic *skēpą (compare West Frisian skiep, North Frisian schäip, Dutch schaap, German Schaf), beside *keppô (compare Old Norse kjappi (“buck”), dialectal German Kippe (“newborn calf”)), of unknown origin. Perhaps from the same Scythian word (compare Ossetian цӕу (cæw, “goat”), Persian چپش (čapiš, “yearling goat”)) 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.

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