sheep-biter

English

Alternative forms

• sheepbiter

Etymology

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).

Noun

sheep-biter (plural sheep-biters)

1. (obsolete) A sheepdog that worries (chases or attacks) sheep.
   • 1592, Thomas Nashe, Pierce Penniless:

     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.

2. (obsolete, figurative, derogatory) A contemptible person, expecially one who practices petty thefts.
   • 1573, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie:

     His gait, like a sheep-biter, fleering aside

   • 1604, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, The Honest Whore, act 2, scene 1:

     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.

   • c. 1605–1608, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, act 2, scene 5:

     Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly, / rascally sheep-biter come by some notable / shame?

   • 1669, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists‎^[1], Fable CCCXXX: A Sheep-Biter Hang'd, page 296:

     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.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:git and Thesaurus:thief

Derived terms

• sheep-biting

Related terms

• bitesheep