Shepherd

How to spell shepherd

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shepherd

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shepherd mean?

1. nounA person who tends, guards, and herds sheep, especially out in open country.
2. verbTo guide, lead, or carefully steer a group of people or things from one place to another.

Shepherd in a sentence

• noun

  The shepherd moved the flock down from the hills before the storm.

• verb

  The guides will shepherd the tourists through the crowded museum.

• noun

  Each shepherd carried a wooden crook and a thick woollen coat.

• verb

  Staff were asked to shepherd the children safely onto the buses.

Where does shepherd come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Shepherd is a native English word, descending directly from the Old English sceaphierde, a compound of sceap, meaning 'sheep', and hierde, meaning 'herder' or 'keeper of a flock'. The second element is itself related to heord, the ancestor of the modern word 'herd', so a shepherd was literally a 'sheep-herd', the person who watched over the flock. Over the centuries the spelling softened and the middle sound was reduced, which is exactly why writers stumble: the word is heard as 'shep-erd' yet still carries the silent first h of herd, giving the trap-laden cluster 'pherd'. The figurative sense of someone who guides or protects a group of people appeared early through religious and pastoral imagery and gave rise to the verb 'to shepherd', meaning to guide gently along. The same hierde root also survives, in much altered form, in surnames and in the related word 'herd' itself.

How the word is built

• shep- (from sceap: sheep)
• herd (from hierde: herder, guardian)