Skip to content

Is Sheep Singular or Plural?

Last Updated

If you’ve been keeping up with your regularly scheduled grammarflexing, you’d know by now that if you’re saying sheeps, it’s because you’re using it the third-person present singular (and not as the plural of sheep).

What’s the plural of “sheep”?

  • The plural of sheep is sheep.

  • Sheeps is incorrect, and a commonly mistaken plural for the sheep.

Sentence examples with “sheep”
singular The disobedient sheep would not follow the shepherd.
pluralThese leaves are toxic to cattle and sheep.

This makes sheep an irregular noun; regular nouns add “s” or “es” to switch to plural; e.g., cats, tables, dresses.

Singular and plural nouns

Some nouns stay the same in the singular and plural, like sheep, deer, and moose (to name a few).


With these nouns, we can usually infer whether it’s singular or plural from other parts of the sentence. The chart below shows similar irregular nouns that stay the same as both a singular and a plural.

singularplural
sheepsheep
moosemoose
fishfish (sometimes fishes)
elkelk
deerdeer
bison bison (or bisons)

“Sheep”, used in sentences as a plural

Black sheep are much rarer than white sheep.

A a flock of sheep are in the field behind the house.

Expect to spot sheep, elk, deer, moose, coyote and many winter birds during your ski.

We ate yoghurt made from sheep’s milk.

My father works on a sheep farm.

Other examples of sentences with “sheep”

The majority of the species of Acacia are edible and serve as reserve fodder for sheep and cattle.

The failure of the crops was almost universal and large numbers of sheep and cattle perished for want of food.

It wasn’t necessary to count sheep.

Pigs, sheep and goats are also kept in considerable numbers.

Enormous flocks of sheep are kept in the deserts around Bukhara.

Phrases with “sheep”

PhraseMeaning
a wolf in sheep’s clothingif one person takes a dangerous risk, others will follow
black sheep of the family one that’s different from the other family members, or feels like the odd one out
to make sheep’s eyes to give someone a doting look
it’s a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor make sure you trust those you confide in
hanged for a sheep as a lamb meaning the punishment will be the same regardless of the crime
if one sheep leaps over the ditch, all the rest will followif one person takes a dangerous risk, others will follow

Names for male, female, and baby sheep

Female sheep and goats are ewes (/juː/), an intact male is a ram, and sometimes a tup. Castrated male sheep are wethers, and young sheep are lambs.

What do you call a group of sheep?

Commonly, a group of sheep is a flock. Less common is a “herd of sheep”. Shepherds (sheep-herders) typically herd the sheep flock back into their pens. This is the difference between a flock of sheep and a herd of sheep (it’s a subtle difference, to be sure).

Read more on plural nouns

Sources

  1. The Elk House
  2. The difference between a flock of sheep and a herd of sheep?
  3. Plural of animals quiz
  4. “It’s a foolish sheep that makes the wolf his confessor.” Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. 2015. Farlex, Inc 18 Dec. 2023

The latest from the Grammarflex blog

From grammar and writing to style and clarity, our experts tackle the biggest questions in English and content creation.