Teggs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Young sheep in their second year of life, before they have been sheared or have produced a lamb
2. Sheep that are between one and two years old, typically kept for breeding or wool production
3. Yearling ewes or wethers that have passed their first birthday but not yet reached their third year

Etymology: "Teggs" is the plural of "tegg", a word for a two-year-old sheep. The term is a northern English and Scottish dialect word, used by shepherds to mark a sheep's age by how many winters it has lived through, and it belongs to the same family of age terms as "hogg" for a young sheep before its first shearing. The word's exact origin is unclear. It is thought to be related to older Scandinavian and Germanic words for a yearling or young animal, but the connections are not firmly established, so the trail stops there. Its use is limited to the vocabulary of farming and wool-raising, which is why most English speakers have never encountered it.