Ewe

English

Noun

Ewe (plural Ewes or ewe)

1. A female sheep, as opposed to a ram.

Notes

• Because of its pronunciation and despite its spelling, this word most commonly takes the indefinite article a rather than an.

Find words for Ewe

Adjectives

mild-faced; fulsome.

Thesaurus

Partlet, bellwether, biddy, bitch, bossy, brood mare, cow, doe, ewe lamb, filly, guinea hen, gyp, heifer, hen, hind, jenny, jumbuck, lamb, lambkin, lioness, mare, mutton, nanny, nanny goat, peahen, ram, roe, she-bear, she-goat, she-lion, sheep, slut, sow, teg, tigress, tup, vixen, wether, yeanling

Etymology

Old English ēowu, feminine of eow 'sheep', from Proto-Germanic *awiz (compare West Frisian ei 'ewe', Dutch ooi 'id.', Old High German ouwi 'sheep'), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ówis 'sheep' (compare Hittite ḫau̯i, Old Irish ói, Latin ovis, Tocharian B ā(_u)w, Lithuanian avìs 'ewe', Old Church Slavonic овьнъ (ovĭnŭ) 'ram', овьца (ovĭca) 'ewe; sheep', Ancient Greek ὄϊς (óïs), Sanskrit अवि (ávi)).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /juː/, SAMPA: /ju:/
• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophones: u, yew, you (in all dialects)
• Homophones: hew, hue (in h-dropping dialects)

Translations

female sheep

Afrikaans: skaapooi (af) Albanian: dele (sq) Armenian: մաքի (mak'i) Bosnian: ovca (bs) f. Breton: dañvadez f. -ed pl. Catalan: ovella f. Czech: ovce (cs) f. Danish: moderfår (da) Dutch: ooi (nl) f. Esperanto: ŝafino (eo) Ewe: alẽnɔ Faroese: ær (fo) f. Finnish: uuhi (fi) French: brebis (fr) f. German: Mutterschaf n., Aue f., Zibbe f., Zicke f. Greek: προβατίνα (el) (provatína) f., αρνάδα (el) (arnáda) f., αμνάδα (el) (amnáda) f. Hebrew: רחל (he) f. (rachél, rakhél) Icelandic: ær (is) f. Italian: pecora (it) f.

Japanese: 牝羊, 雌羊 (ja) (めひつじ, mehitsuji) Latin: ovis (f) Macedonian: овца f. Mandarin: 母羊 (cmn) (mǔyáng) Norwegian: søye (no) c. Old English: ēowu (ang) Polish: owca (pl) f. Portuguese: ovelha (pt) f. Romanian: oita (ro) f. Russian: овца (ovtsa) f., ярка (yarka) f. Serbian: Cyrillic: овца f. Latin: ovca f. Slovene: ovca (sl) f. Spanish: oveja f., oveja madre f. Swedish: tacka (sv) c. Vietnamese: cuu cai Volapük: jijip (vo)

See also

• ram

Anagrams

• eew
• wee

Trivia

Because of its pronunciation, ewe and its homophone you form one of only two homophone pairs in modern English that share no letters in their spelling in common. The other pair is 'I' and "eye", with "aye" also for some dialects.

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Anglo-Norman

Etymology

Old French eve, Latin aqua.

Noun

Ewe f. (oblique plural Ewes, nominative singular Ewe, nominative plural Ewes)

1. water

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Finnish

Noun

Ewe

1. Ewe (member of a West African ethnic group)
2. Ewe (language)
3. Used also adjectivally with a hyphen or in genitive plural

   ewe-kulttuuri; ewejen kulttuuri

   Ewe culture

   ewe-kansa

   Ewe people

   ewejen kieli

   Ewe language

4. In plural (ewet), the Ewe (ethnic group)

Declension

Declension of Ewe (type valo) singular plural nominative Ewe ewet genitive ewen ewejen partitive eweä ewejä accusative Ewe ewen ewet inessive ewessä eweissä elative ewestä eweistä illative eween eweihin adessive ewellä eweillä ablative eweltä eweiltä allative ewelle eweille essive ewenä eweinä translative eweksi eweiksi instructive – ewein abessive ewettä eweittä comitative – eweineen

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Swedish

Noun

Ewe c.

1. Ewe (language)