Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cowherd.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person who has the care of cattle; a cow-keeper.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A person who has the care of neat cattle; a cowherd.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A cowherd; one who looks after bulls, cows or oxen.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From neat +‎ herd.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word neatherd.

Examples

  • Franconia, 1476, a base illiterate fellow took upon him to be a prophet, and preach, John Beheim by name, a neatherd at

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Because you fancy that the shepherd or neatherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying their own advantage day and night.

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • The swineherd and neatherd listened with amazement, willing to believe, but still half in doubt; but when Odysseus showed them the scar, which they had seen many a time before, they were convinced, and embraced their old master with tears and cries of joy.

    Stories from the Odyssey

  • Jocelyn's life of St. Werburg as a pious neatherd at Weedon who bore with great patience the ill-treatment of the bailiff placed over him, and who afterwards became a hermit in a very lonely spot, where he was eventually murdered by two robbers.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913

  • This remark of the neatherd increased Orberosia's apprehensions and added to her solicitude for the husband whom she loved.

    Penguin Island 1909

  • And Eumaeus took them with tears, and laid them down; and otherwhere the neatherd wept, when he beheld the bow of his lord.

    Book XXI Homer 1909

  • But Telemachus, and the neatherd, and the swineherd stayed their feet from dancing, and made the women to cease, and themselves gat them to rest through the shadowy halls.

    Book XXIII Homer 1909

  • Then the neatherd answered him, saying: ‘Father Zeus, if but thou wouldst fulfil this wish: 2 —oh, that that man might come, and some god lead him hither!

    Book XXI Homer 1909

  • Therewith he girded on his shoulder his goodly armour, and roused Telemachus and the neatherd and the swineherd, and bade them all take weapons of war in their hands.

    Book XXIII Homer 1909

  • For it happened that she saw passing in the twilight a neatherd from Belmont, who was goading on his oxen, and she fell more deeply in love with him than she had ever been with the shepherd Marcel.

    Penguin Island 1909

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Winter is simply beastly for northern neatherds,

    girt in the smelly pelts of Reynard and Ursa...

    - Peter Reading, Englished (iii. 349-83), from Diplopic, 1983

    June 30, 2008