Tegs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Young sheep in their first year after weaning; a term for adolescent lambs that have grown past the nursing stage; describing sheep that have not yet reached full maturity but are no longer newborns
2. Immature sheep that are past the lamb stage yet not fully grown; juvenile ovines recently weaned from their mothers; young wool-bearing animals in an early stage of development
3. Ovine livestock that are in their first winter after weaning; sheep that have transitioned from lamb to youth but are still maturing; young animals raised for wool or meat not yet fully mature

Etymology: "Tegs" is the plural of "teg", a word for a young sheep in its second year, after it has been weaned and before it has its first shearing. The plural is simply the standard English form, so the interesting history lies in the singular. The origin of "teg" is uncertain. One suggestion is that it was first used as a contemptuous word for a woman, and only later applied to a ewe in her second year, which seems an odd route for a word to take. The same root has also been linked to a Swedish word for a ewe, but that connection is not firmly established. What the evidence does show is that the word's earliest life was as an insult, and its later use for sheep grew out of that rather than from a clear, documented source.

Synonyms: lambs, sheep