Word.ws English Dictionary

sheep-biter

sheep-biter noun: a sheepdog that worries (chases or attacks) sheep.

Noun

sheep-biter (plural sheep-biters)

  1. (obsolete) A sheepdog that worries (chases or attacks) sheep.
    • What curre will not bawle, & be ready to flye on a mans face, when he is set on by his master, who, if hee bee not by to encourage him, he casts his taile betwixt his legges, & steales away like a sheepe byter.1592, Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless
  2. (derogatory, figuratively, obsolete) A contemptible person, especially one who practices petty thefts.
    • His gait, like a sheep-biter, fleering aside1573, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie
    • A poor man has but one ewe, and this grandee sheep-biter leaves whole flocks of fat wethers, whom he may knock down, to deuour this.1604, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, The Honest Whore, act 2, scene 1

sheep-biter meaning in Tamil

sheep-biter in Tamil

செம்மறியாட்டு நாய்

Examples of sheep-biter in a sentence

  • Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly, / rascally sheep-biter come by some notable / shame?c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 2, scene 5:
  • There are Political Sheep-biters as well as Pastoral; Betrayers of Publick Trusts as well as of Private; And Humane Curs that are as Wolvish as the Other.1669, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists, Fable CCCXXX: A Sheep-Biter Hang'd, page 296:

Forms of sheep-biter

pluralsheep-biters
alternative formsheepbiter

Origin of sheep-biter

sheep + biter (“one who bites”). Figurative term possibly influenced by the fable "De cane oves domini sui occidente, a quo suspensus est" in Hecatomythium by Laurentius Abstemius (later included with Aesop's Fables as "A Sheep-Biter Hang'd" — see quotations).

Words formed from sheep-biter

Questions about sheep-biter

What does sheep-biter mean?
Sheep-biter means a sheepdog that worries (chases or attacks) sheep.
What is sheep-biter in Tamil?
Sheep-biter in Tamil is செம்மறியாட்டு நாய். See Sheep-biter meaning in Tamil.
How do you use sheep-biter in a sentence?
Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly, / rascally sheep-biter come by some notable / shame?
What part of speech is sheep-biter?
Sheep-biter is a noun.
What is the plural of sheep-biter?
The plural of sheep-biter is sheep-biters.

Words near sheep-biter in the dictionary

  1. sheep's head
  2. sheep's heads
  3. sheep's-bit
  4. sheep-bell
  5. sheep-bells
  6. sheep-biter
  7. sheep-biters
  8. sheep-biting
  9. sheep-dip
  10. sheep-dipped
  11. sheep-dipping

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sheep-biter (page history and authors); sheep-biter (Tamil Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “sheep-biter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sheep-biter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.