Other forms: ewes
A ewe is an adult female sheep. A ewe with lambs, ewes in the field, a breeding ewe.
The word is essential on a farm, where ram, ewe, lamb and wether all name different animals and none is interchangeable. It is pronounced like you. A ewe usually has one or two lambs and knows her own by voice and smell within hours. Note that the word is Old English and very ancient.
1nouneweAn adult female sheep.
“The ewe licked her newborn lamb clean in the straw.”
ewe is an animal.
Old English eowu comes from a Proto-Indo-European word for a sheep. Latin ovis and the English ovine come from the same root.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ówis — sheep
Proto-Germanic
*awiz
Proto-West Germanic
*awi
Old English
eowu
Middle English
ewe
English, today
ewe
From Middle English ewe, from Old English eowu, from Proto-West Germanic awi, from Proto-Germanic awiz, from Proto-Indo-European h₂ówis (“sheep”). 2 See also Old English ēow (“sheep”), West Frisian ei, Dutch ooi, German Aue; also Old Irish oí, Latin ovis, txb āᵤw, Lithuanian avìs (“ewe”), Russian овца́.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA