Shippen

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A building or shed where cattle or sheep are kept ; an enclosure or stall within a barn where livestock are housed
2. A farm shelter used to house cows or sheep ; a pen or compartment inside a barn set aside for animals
3. A rural outbuilding sheltering livestock, particularly cattle or sheep ; a separate stall or enclosure inside such a barn for animals

Etymology: "Shippen" is an old English word for a cow-shed or stall, and it survives today mainly in the phrase "shippen" as a regional or dialect term for a farm building. Its Old English ancestor, "scypen," meant a stall or shed for cattle, and it was formed from the Proto-Germanic "skupīnō," a diminutive of a root meaning "shed" or "barn." In other words, the word began as a little shed, a shelter scaled down from the larger structures it was built from. The most striking connection is to "shop." Both words descend from the same Germanic root for a shed, and "shop" once meant a booth or workshop in the same sense, so the two words are close cousins that took very different paths. "Shop" moved toward buying and selling, while "shippen" stayed rooted in the farmyard. A related word, "shepen," appears in the same family, showing how the root branched into several forms across Old English and Middle English.

Synonyms: shippon, byre, cowshed, barn