sheep-oint.n.
/ˈʃiːpəʊ/, U.S. /ˈʃipˌoʊ/, Australian English /ˈʃiːpoʊ/, New Zealand English /ˈʃiːpʌu/ Australian and New Zealand.
A. int.
A shearer's call for a sheep to shear.
ΚΠ
1900 H. Lawson On Track 132 ‘Go it, you—tigers!’ yells a tarboy. ‘Wool away!’ ‘Tar!’ ‘Sheep Ho!’ We rush through with a whirring noise till breakfast time.
1949 P. Newton High Country Days 5 The cry of ‘Sheepo!’ would rouse the ‘penner-up’.
1955 [see sense B.]. B. n.
(Chiefly New Zealand) = penner-up at penner n.4
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > sheep-farming > [noun] > folding sheep > fold or pen > one who pens sheep
sheep-o1911
1911 W. H. Koebel In Maoriland Bush viii. 124 The ‘sheep-oh’ sets to work to fill the nearly emptied pens.
1925 R. Rees Lake of Enchantment vii. 111 The [shearing] gang [included]..some boys to act as ‘sheep-os’—that is to keep the pens in the shed filled up from the yards outside.
1940 E. C. Studholme Te Waimate (1954) xv. 130 The ‘sheep-oh’ (penner-up)..in addition to filling up the catching-pens..weighed the bales and recorded them..in the wool book.
1955 G. Bowen Wool Away! (1956) vii. 96 The ‘sheepo’ is the man who fills the catching pens. He gets this title from the fact that when a shearer catches the last sheep in his pen, he gives the call of ‘sheepo’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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int.n.1900