Word.ws English Dictionary

bitesheep

bitesheep noun: a bishop, particularly a Catholic bishop persecuting Protestants.

Noun

bitesheep (plural bitesheeps)

  1. (derogatory, obsolete, slur) A bishop, particularly a Catholic bishop persecuting Protestants.
    • Wherefore mine advice and most earnest desire is, with all other of your loving friends, that you still keep that order with those bloodthirsty bitesheeps (bishops, I should say) that you have begun. For though in conclusion they will surely have your blood, yet shall they come by it with shame...c. 1556, John Foxe, “A Letter of John Careless, answering to the loving Epistle or Letter sent to him before by Master John Philpot”, in Rev. Stephen Reed Cattley, editor, The Acts and Monuments of...
    • Wherfore the bitesheepe and the recorder beinge owtragiously moved agaynst him, contrary to all justice all Law th[e]y condemned him to bee whipped at a Carts tayle and to bee boored through the eare wᵗʰ a hot iron, wᶜʰ was executed in most dispitful and cruellest manner that might bee executed to...1578 December 15, A. Dolm, [A Letter]; republished in “Diarium Secundum”, in The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay, London: David Nutt, 1878, Februarius 1579, page 149

Forms of bitesheep

pluralbitesheeps
alternative formbiteshipe

Origin of bitesheep

From bite + sheep. Possibly an intentional, satirical corruption of, or pun on, bishop, to imply one who bites the flock he should be protecting (compare English sheep-biter).

Questions about bitesheep

What does bitesheep mean?
Bitesheep means a bishop, particularly a Catholic bishop persecuting Protestants.
What part of speech is bitesheep?
Bitesheep is a noun.
What is the plural of bitesheep?
The plural of bitesheep is bitesheeps.

Words near bitesheep in the dictionary

  1. bites the bullet
  2. bites the curb
  3. bites the dust
  4. bites the hand that feeds one
  5. bitesful
  6. bitesheep
  7. bitesheeps
  8. biteshipe
  9. biteshipes
  10. bitesize
  11. bitesome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bitesheep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bitesheep.wav.

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