sheephook

English

Etymology

sheep + hook

Noun

sheephook (plural sheephooks)

  1. crook, a staff used by shepherds
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)
    • 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer, 1899 ed. edition:
      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.
    • 1894, Alexander Whyte, Samuel Rutherford:
      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.
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