Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A food fish (Archosargus probatocephalus) of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, having dark vertical markings.
- n. A freshwater drum (Aplodinotus grunniens) commonly found from the Great Lakes to Texas.
- n. A redfish (Semicossyphus pulcher) of the Gulf of California, caught commercially or as a game fish.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A fool; a silly person.
- n. A sparoid fish, Archosargus or Diplodus probatocephalus (formerly known as Sargus ovis), abundant on the Atlantic coast of the United States, and highly esteemed as a food-fish. It is a stout- and very deep-bodied fish, with a steep frontal profile, of a grayish color with about eight vertical black bands, and the fins mostly dark. It attains a length of 30 inches, though usually found of a smaller size.
- n. A sciænoid fish of the fresh waters of the United States, Haplodinotus grunniens. Also called drum, croaker, and thunder-pumper.
- n. (or
- To fish for or catch sheepshead.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Zoöl.) A large and valuable sparoid food fish (Archosargus probatocephalus syn. Diplodus probatocephalus) found on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It often weighs from ten to twelve pounds.
WordNet 3.0
- n. large (up to 20 lbs) food fish of the eastern coast of the United States and Mexico
Etymologies
- sheep + head (Wiktionary)
Examples
“We dined today on the fish called the sheepshead, with crabs.”
“One kind whereof is by the English called a sheepshead from the resemblance the eye of it bears with the eye of a sheep.”
“Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish - a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead - smashed a car windshield”
“Say you're fishing in 40 feet of water in the Gulf, targeting non-reef species such as sheepshead, Spanish mackerel, kingfish and permit.”
“Mr. Flynn, of GW Fins, pondered whether customers would enjoy sheepshead if they got a gander at its "Jimmy Carter-like teeth.”
“At AltaMare, a new Miami Beach, Fla., hotspot known for its creative fish selections, the kitchen serves the local hero Florida grouper but recently added to its regular menu sheepshead, as "an amusement, and how much I like it," said its chef Simon Stojanovic, via e-mail.”
“Sometimes sheepshead will save the day if you're fishing smallmouth in a river.”
“Most of the time you catch a lot of both, but somedays only the sheepshead are biting much and they fight like hell.”
“They are catching slot-redfish and a few sheepshead.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sheepshead’.
-
fish list
lots and lots of fish, a piscatorial
wetdreamablet, agnathan, ahi, ahuru, ahuruhuru, albacore, albicore, alec, alewife, allice, allis, amberjack and 840 more...
-
stripes and bands
variegated armadillos and other asundry bands and stripes
fajada, raye, apar, fasciated, hemigalus, numbat, onyx, tatouay, tortrix, coquina, peba, myrmecobius and 113 more...
-
Short of a Full Deck
A list of playing card games employing fewer cards than the typical 52-card deck.
pinochle, Skat, piquet, belote, Doppelkopf, Tarot, tarock, tarocco, hanafuda, sixty-six, Schnapsen, ulti and 32 more...
-
Things from my memory
nigger baby, mexican jumping bean, puddle jumper, mood ring, pet rock, cat scratch fever, taxman, hippie, vaseline, argyrol, mercurchrome, methiolade and 655 more...
-
What Keeps Your Ears Apart?
A sort of stuffie of words/phrases that include "head"
head of cattle, out of one's head, head of the stairs, come to a head, head of steam, head of the page, win by a head, head taller, headway, fountainhead, heads or tails, hit the nail on t... and 143 more...
-
Broken Land
Welcome to Brooklyn, home to everyone from everywhere.
coney, sheepshead, prospect, vinegar, cyclone, dodger, elevated, fugheddaboudit, hipster, subway, oy, atlantic
Tweets
Looking for tweets for sheepshead.
hernesheir Also sheephead, referring to the card game. Dec 10, 2010
gangerh Tails. You lose. Sep 4, 2008
bilby Heads? Sep 4, 2008
lampbane There are no sheep in Sheepshead Bay. Sep 4, 2008
treeseed Sheepshead is a card game related to the Skat family of games, originating in Central Europe in the late 1700s under the German name Schafkopf. Although Schafkopf literally means "sheepshead", the term is actually derived from Middle High German and referred to playing cards on an overturned barrel (from kopfen, meaning playing cards, and Schaff, meaning a barrel).
Sheepshead is played by two to eight players, where the variant with five players is the most common, by far. In the United States, Sheepshead is most commonly played in Wisconsin, which has a strong Germanic population.
_Wikipedia Feb 6, 2008