Definition
In legal usage, particularly in historical criminal pleading, "sheep" carries a precise technical meaning distinct from its ordinary sense. At common law, "sheep" referred specifically to a wether — a castrated male ovine — more than one year old. The term was not a general designation for the species Ovis aries but a term of art governing the sufficiency of criminal indictments for theft. An indictment charging the theft of a "sheep" was defective if the animal was in fact a ewe, a lamb, or a wether under one year old, as each required its own specific designation.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A woolly ruminant of the genus Ovis; most commonly, a member of the domestic species Ovis aries. Also used figuratively for a timid or easily led person, or a religious adherent within a congregation.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Any one of several species of ruminants of the genus Ovis, native of higher mountains of both hemispheres. Figuratively, a weak or bashful fellow, or the people of God under Christ's protection.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is sharp and historically consequential. In ordinary speech, "sheep" functions as a species-level term covering males, females, and young of any age. In common law pleading, it was a strict term of art applying only to the adult castrated male. Researchers encountering "sheep" in indictments, verdict records, or theft prosecutions must treat the word as a technical designation, not a casual reference to the animal generally.
Common Confusion
The historical sources are uniform on the point: "sheep," "ewe," and "lamb" were not interchangeable in pleading. Anderson's Dictionary makes the rule explicit — a ewe must be called a ewe, a lamb must be called a lamb, and "sheep" is proper only where the animal is a wether. Confusing these terms in an indictment was not a matter of mere technicality; it went to the sufficiency of the charge and could defeat a prosecution. Researchers reading secondary accounts that use "sheep" loosely to describe any stolen ovine should be alert to the possibility that the underlying primary source used the word with precision.
Why It Matters in Research
This entry is primarily relevant to researchers working with English criminal records from the medieval period through the nineteenth century, when strict pleading requirements governed indictment language. Several research traps follow from the technical meaning.
First, indictment databases and transcriptions may use "sheep" as a general term when transcribing records, collapsing a distinction that the original scrivener maintained carefully. A search for stolen "sheep" will not reliably surface prosecutions involving ewes or lambs unless those terms are searched independently.
Second, the rule reflects a broader principle of common law pleading — that animals subject to larceny had to be identified with specificity. This connects to the corpus of pleading manuals and form books that governed indictment drafting. Researchers tracing the evolution of larceny doctrine should look for how strictly courts enforced these distinctions across different periods and jurisdictions.
Third, the term has essentially no live legal significance in modern law. Contemporary theft and livestock statutes use "sheep" in the ordinary species sense, without the wether restriction. The technical meaning is historical artifact, not current doctrine. Researchers encountering "sheep" in any post-nineteenth-century statutory or case law context should read it in the ordinary sense unless context strongly indicates otherwise.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in complete agreement, each tracing the definition to the same authority: Rex v. Birket, 4 Car. & P. 216, a King's Bench decision that fixed the pleading rule. Black's first and second editions reproduce the definition verbatim. Bouvier follows identically. Anderson adds the most substantive gloss, spelling out the practical consequences for indictment drafting — that ewes and lambs each require their proper names, and "sheep" is reserved for the wether.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is how widely or consistently this rule was enforced across different courts, or whether American jurisdictions adopted the English pleading precision in full. Bouvier's inclusion of the rule suggests some reception in American practice, but the single case citation is English, and no American authority is offered. Researchers working in early American criminal records should not assume uniform application of this rule without consulting jurisdiction-specific pleading treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
The technical pleading distinction appears to originate in English common law and is documented primarily in English authority. American adoption is implied by Bouvier's inclusion of the rule, but American courts varied in their adherence to strict common law pleading requirements, particularly after mid-nineteenth-century procedural reforms. Modern livestock theft statutes in all U.S. jurisdictions use "sheep" in the ordinary sense.