wether

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wether, also weder,^[2] inherited from Old English weðer (“ram”),^[3][4][5][6] from Proto-Germanic *weþruz.^[4][7][8][9] The word is common Germanic:^[3] compare Old Saxon withar, Old High German widar, German Widder, Dutch weer, Old Norse veðr and Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌸𐍂𐌿𐍃 (wiþrus, “lamb”).^[3][4][7][6] Further back, Etymonline, Klein, Barnhart, Weekley and Orel derive it from Proto-Indo-European *wet- (“year”), so that a wether was at first a yearling,^{[4][5][7][10][8]} with Latin vitulus (“calf”) and Ancient Greek ἔταλον (étalon, “yearling”) as relatives;^[5][4] Kroonen accepts this only conditionally,^[9] the OED says no more than that it is probably related to the Latin word,^[3] and Hoad and the Shorter Oxford call the origin uncertain or disputed.^[6][11] Collins alone prints the Old English form as hwæther.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A male sheep, a ram: Old English, first in Wærferth's translation of Gregory's Dialogues,^[3] which Barnhart dates to about 890.^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged says before the 12th century,^[2] and Dictionary.com before 900.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old English and Old Norse used the word for the ram in general, while Gothic used it for a lamb.^[3][8] Later it came to mean especially a castrated ram.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged marks the plain sense "ram" as obsolete,^[2] and Johnson (1755) defined it only as "a ram castrated", quoting The Merchant of Venice: "I am a tainted wether of the flock".^[14] From 1548 it was also applied to a man, especially a eunuch.^[3] Isolated uses include a battering ram (before 1500) and the zodiacal sign of the Ram (1565).^[3] Since 1660 grey wethers has been a name for sandstone boulders lying on the Downs in Wiltshire and Devon,^[3] and since 1879 a wether has been, in commerce, the fleece of a second or later shearing.^[3] Wright found the word in general dialect use in Scotland and England, often as wedder, with local rules for its age: in Warwickshire a castrated male up to its first shearing, in Leicestershire a male after its third, and in Lincolnshire a "two-shear" or "three-shear" wether by the number of shearings.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 890 – a male sheep, a ram.^[7][3]
• before 1500 – a battering ram.^[3]
• 1548 – of a man, especially a eunuch.^[3]
• 1565 – the zodiacal sign of the Ram.^[3]
• 1660 – grey wethers, boulders on the Downs.^[3]
• 1879 – the fleece from a sheep's second or later shearing.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A male sheep, especially one castrated young; formerly any ram.^[12][2][3]
2. A male goat castrated when young.^[2]
3. grey wethers: sandstone boulders lying on the surface of the Downs in Wiltshire and Devon.^[3]
4. (commerce) The fleece from the second or any later shearing of a sheep.^[3]

Word family

• bellwether

Related words

• veal
• veteran

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)