sheephook

noun

sheephook

noun

Etymology From sheep + hook.

1

crook, a staff used by shepherds

  • You then shall for my fake this sheephook keep, Adorn'd with Brass[…]a. 1701, John Dryden, The Fifth Eclogue Daphnis:
  • 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:
1 more example
  • 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:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.