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prettygoodwordwether (WETH-er) - n., a castrated male sheep.
And apparently also goat, but I've never seen that usage. A non-rare secondary sense is the phrase wether wool, wool from a previously shorn sheep. This one goes back to Old English with close cognates in all the Germanic languages, stemming from a PIE root with the sense of a yearling (from whence also Latin vitalus, calf, from which we get veal).
---L.
And apparently also goat, but I've never seen that usage. A non-rare secondary sense is the phrase wether wool, wool from a previously shorn sheep. This one goes back to Old English with close cognates in all the Germanic languages, stemming from a PIE root with the sense of a yearling (from whence also Latin vitalus, calf, from which we get veal).
---L.
