Meaning & use
wether
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Meaning
nouncountable
A male sheep or goat that has been castrated and is often kept for wool, meat, company, or herd management.
Grammar: Takes a plural for more than one animal: three wethers. It is homophonous with weather and whether.
Patterns
- a flock of wethers
- raise a wether
- a wether and ewes
The shepherd keeps one wether with the ewes to calm the flock.
They raised wethers for market because the animals grew steadily and stayed manageable.
Word forms
| plural | wethers |
|---|
Common combinations
- raise wethers
- The farm agreed to raise wethers for the spring fair.
- wether lamb
- A wether lamb can be easier to handle in a small pasture.
- keep a wether
- She decided to keep a wether as a companion for the older ram.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- wether mutton noun
- meat from a castrated sheep, often valued for a milder flavor
Commonly confused: wether or weather? wether or whether?
wether vs weather
Weather concerns atmospheric conditions, while a wether is an animal; context must separate the homophones in speech.
wether vs whether
Whether introduces alternatives; wether is a concrete farm word with no linking use.
Practice
Which sentence uses wether correctly?
Choose one answer.
A wether is a castrated male sheep or goat, so grazing beside ewes fits. The other options confuse the homophone with weather or whether.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wether”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.