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Herd vs Sheep - What's the difference?

herd | sheep |

As nouns the difference between herd and sheep

is that herd is stove, cooker while sheep is a woolly ruminant of the genus ovis .

herd

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) herde, heerde, heorde, from (etyl) hierd, .

Noun

(en noun)
  • A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper.
  • * 1768, ,
  • The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea.
  • Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company.
  • * 2007, J. Michael Fay, Ivory Wars: Last Stand in Zakouma , National Geographic (March 2007), 47,
  • Zakouma is the last place on Earth where you can see more than a thousand elephants on the move in a single, compact herd .
  • A crowd, a mass of people; now usually pejorative: a rabble.
  • * Dryden
  • But far more numerous was the herd of such / Who think too little and who talk too much.
  • * Coleridge
  • You can never interest the common herd in the abstract question.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company.
  • Sheep herd on many hills.
  • To associate; to ally one's self with, or place one's self among, a group or company.
  • (rfdate) I’ll herd among his friends, and seem One of the number. Addison.

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) hirde, (hierde), from (etyl) . Cognate with German Hirte, Swedish herde, Danish hyrde.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who keeps a group of domestic animals; a herdsman.
  • * 2000 , Alasdair Grey, The Book of Prefaces , Bloomsbury 2002, p. 38:
  • Any talent which gives a good new thing to others is a miracle, but commentators have thought it extra miraculous that England's first known poet was an illiterate herd .
    Derived terms
    * bearherd * cowherd * goatherd * gooseherd * hogherd * horseherd * neatherd * oxherd * swanherd * swineherd * vaxherd

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (Scotland) To act as a herdsman or a shepherd.
  • To form or put into a herd.
  • I heard the herd of cattle being herded home from a long way away.

    See also

    * * drove * gather * muster * round up * ride herd on English collective nouns ----

    sheep

    English

    Noun

    (sheep)
  • A woolly ruminant of the genus Ovis .
  • A timid, shy person who is easily led by others.
  • (chiefly, humorous)
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * black sheep * sheepdog * sheepfold * sheepish * sheeple * sheepskin * shoop (chiefly-humorous back-formation)

    Descendants

    * Abenaki: (l)

    See also

    * * Aries * ewe * lamb * mutton * ovine * ram * teg * tup * wether

    References

    Anagrams

    * * 1000 English basic words ----