sheepshearing

American  

[sheep-sheer-ing] / ˈʃipˌʃɪər ɪŋ /

noun

1. an act or instance of shearing sheep.

2. the time or season of shearing sheep.

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sheepshearing British  

/ ˈʃiːpˌʃɪərɪŋ /

noun

1. the act or process of shearing sheep

2. the season or an occasion of shearing sheep

3. a feast held on such an occasion

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Other Word Forms

• sheepshearer
  noun

Etymology

Origin of sheepshearing

1580–90; sheep + shear ( def. ) + -ing ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

At Te Kuiti High School, he was a reluctant student given to taking time off to help his father with sheepshearing and other tasks.

From New York Times • Aug. 22, 2017

Loopy, lovely and almost impossibly good-humored, it whisks kids and their caregivers away to Bohemia and plunks them down in the midst of a sheepshearing festival.

From New York Times • Apr. 24, 2017

Their largely rural life — the barefoot kids, the sheepshearing, the vegetarian cooking — was filled with a great deal of what seems like genuine and dog-hair-covered happiness.

From New York Times • May 5, 2016

The sheepshearing scenes — despite the comic talents of Adam Green, Dominic Cuskern and Steve Cuiffo — seem studied rather than rollicking.

From New York Times • Feb. 22, 2015

The ‘servant-monster’ was an p. 256obvious allusion to Caliban, and ‘the nest of Antics’ was a glance at the satyrs who figure in the sheepshearing feast in ‘A Winter’s Tale.’

From A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles by Lee, Sidney, Sir