- an animal with a thick coat, kept on farms for its meat (called mutton or lamb) or its wool
- a flock of sheep
- Sheep were grazing in the fields.
- sheep farmers
- These leaves are toxic to cattle and sheep.
Extra ExamplesTopics Animalsa1- My grandfather used to raise sheep in Australia.
- The dogs herded the sheep into the pen.
- a 4 000-acre sheep station in New South Wales
- (figurative) He sees it as his duty to take care of the lost sheep of the world.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- hill
- mountain
- lost
- …
- flock
- herd
- farm
- keep
- raise
- …
- graze
- bleat
- farm
- ranch
- station
- …
- a breed of sheep
Word OriginOld English scēp, scǣp, scēap, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch schaap and German Schaf.
Idioms
See sheep in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee sheep in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishcount sheep
- to imagine that sheep are jumping over a fence and to count them, as a way of getting to sleep
like sheep
- (disapproving) if people behave like sheep, they all do what the others are doing, without thinking for themselves
(you, etc.) may/might as well be hanged/hung for a sheep as (for) a lamb
- (saying) if you are going to be punished for doing something wrong, whether it is a big or small thing, you may as well do the big thing
sort out/separate the sheep from the goats
- to recognize the difference between people who are good at something, intelligent, etc. and those who are not
a wolf in sheep’s clothing
- a person who seems to be friendly or not likely to cause any harm but is really an enemy
Check pronunciation:
sheep