Dictionary

sheephook en · NOUN

Etymology

From sheep + hook.

Meanings

1. crook, a staff used by shepherds
   • O'er both their marks it flew; till fiercely flung From Polypoetes' arm the discus sung: Far as a swain his whirling sheephook throws, That distant falls among the grazing cows, So past them all the rapid circle flies: His friends, while loud applauses shake the skies, With force conjoin'd heave off the weighty prize. 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, published 1899:
   • For the shepherd of that unhappy sheepfold also had climbed up some other way before he knew how to hold a sheephook, till, week after week, the hungry sheep looked up and were not fed. 1894, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Rutherford:
   • You then shall for my fake this sheephook keep, Adorn'd with Brass[…] a. 1701, John Dryden, The Fifth Eclogue Daphnis:

Forms