• Sheephook

    Origin

    sheep + hook

    Full definition of sheephook

    Noun

    sheephook

    (plural sheephooks)
    1. crook, a staff used by shepherds
      • 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer Chapter , 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 Chapter , 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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