sheephook

English

Etymology

From sheep +‎ hook.

Noun

sheephook (plural sheephooks)

1. crook, a staff used by shepherds
   • a. 1701, John Dryden, The Fifth Eclogue Daphnis:

     You then shall for my fake this sheephook keep,
     Adorn'd with Brass […]

   • 1720, Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer‎^[1], published 1899:

     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^[2]:

     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.