Definition
A wether is a castrated male sheep (ram) that is at least one year old. The term appears in legal contexts primarily in criminal indictments involving the theft or killing of livestock. For pleading purposes, a wether may be described as a "sheep" without the description being considered a fatal variance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Listed as an archaic spelling of "weather." The agricultural sense survives mainly in farming and husbandry contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A castrated ram."
The common and legal meanings are consistent — both refer to a castrated ram — but a modern researcher unfamiliar with animal husbandry terminology may not recognize the word at all, or may misread it as a spelling variant of "weather." The legal significance is narrow but precise: the term carries an age qualifier (at least one year) that the common definition omits.
Why It Matters in Research
WETHER is a term of limited but specific legal significance, encountered almost exclusively in historical criminal indictments for larceny, malicious mischief, or livestock-related offenses. Its appearance in older English and American case law reflects an era when livestock theft was a serious felony and precise identification of the animal could affect the charge.
The key research point: a wether could be charged in an indictment simply as a "sheep," and this broader description was held sufficient — it was not a defective pleading. This rule against variance on species-level precision matters when reviewing historical indictments for technical sufficiency arguments. Researchers examining challenge to the form of an indictment in livestock cases should not expect consistent use of the term; "sheep" was the accepted substitute.
The term is essentially absent from modern legal materials. Researchers encountering it will almost always be working in historical English common law records or early American state court decisions. The single authority cited across all three source dictionaries — Rex v. Birket, 4 Car. & P. 216 — is the foundational case establishing that "sheep" suffices as a description in an indictment where the animal was in fact a wether.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Bouvier's are in complete agreement: a wether is a castrated ram of at least one year, and the indictment rule permitting the use of "sheep" is consistent across all three sources. The second edition of Black's adds the full case citation (Rex v. Birket) where the first edition and Bouvier cite only the reporter reference. There is no meaningful divergence among the sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: why the one-year age threshold matters legally. This likely reflects husbandry practice — a lamb under one year would be described differently in agricultural and market contexts — but none of the source dictionaries explain the legal consequence, if any, of the animal being under one year old. Researchers should not assume the age element carried independent legal weight beyond accurate description.
Jurisdictional Note
This term and its associated pleading rule derive from English common law. Early American jurisdictions following common law pleading forms would have applied the same principle, but modern pleading rules have eliminated any practical significance of the distinction.