Shippons

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Farm buildings where cows are housed and milked, especially in parts of northern England and Scotland
2. Sheds on a farm used to keep cattle sheltered, typically with stalls for milking and feeding
3. Simple barns or outbuildings in which dairy cows are kept, common in rural British farming communities

Etymology: "Shippons" is simply the plural of "shippon," a word for a cowshed, the building where cattle are kept. Its ancestry runs back to Old English "sċypen," a word for a shed or lean-to, which in turn comes from a Proto-Germanic root, "*skup-," that also gave English "shop." Some Germanic languages still keep the old sense: German "Schuppen" means a shed, and Bavarian dialect has "Schupfn" and "Schupfa," which share the same ancestry. The word passed through Middle English as "shipne" and "shepne," and over time it narrowed from a general shelter to a building for livestock, especially cows. That narrowing is the part of the story that sets it apart from "shop," which kept the broader idea of a place where something is stored or made.

Synonyms: cowshed, byre