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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shepherd.

A person who tends sheep, especially a grazing flock.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʃɛpəd/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʃɛpəɹd/General-American
  1. A person who tends sheep, especially a grazing flock.

    countable
  2. A person who tends sheep, especially a grazing flock. A male sheep tender

    countable
  3. Someone who watches over, looks after, or guides somebody.

    countable · figuratively
  4. Someone who watches over, looks after, or guides somebody. A male watcher/guardian/guider/leader

    countable · figuratively
  5. The pastor of a church; one who guides others in religion.

    countable · figuratively
  6. The pastor of a church; one who guides others in religion. A male pastor

    countable · figuratively
  7. A swain; a rustic male lover.

    countable · poetic
  8. A German Shepherd.

    countable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English schepherde, from Old English sċēaphierde, a compound of sċēap (“sheep”) and hierde (“herdsman”), equivalent to modern sheep + herd (“herder”).

verb/ˈʃɛpəd/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʃɛpəɹd/General-American
  1. To watch over; to guide.

    transitive
  2. To obstruct an opponent from getting to the ball, either when a teammate has it or is going for it, or if the ball is about to bounce through the goal or out of bounds.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English schepherde, from Old English sċēaphierde, a compound of sċēap (“sheep”) and hierde (“herdsman”), equivalent to modern sheep + herd (“herder”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.