Noun: ovine
| Singular | ovine |
| Plural | ovines |
Sample Sentences
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At present, municipal councillors play at party politics by organizing the ovine members who do not know how to vote until a Party Whip tells them, and opposing independent candidates at the elections. The remedy for this is the exclusion of ovines from the municipal panel. [1944, [George] Bernard Shaw, “Political Summary”, in Everybody’s Political What’s What?, London: Constable and Company, →OCLC, page 353:]
Nouns inflected like ovine
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. The adjective is borrowed from Late Latin ovīnus (“ovine”) + English -ine (suffix with the sense ‘of or relating to’ forming adjectives). Ovīnus is derived from Latin ovis (“sheep”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ówis (“sheep”), possibly from *h₂ew- (“to clothe oneself, dress; to be dressed”) in the sense of something that provides woollen clothing) + -īnus (suffix with the sense ‘of or relating to’ forming adjectives). By surface analysis, ove- + -ine.
2. The noun is derived from the adjective. See: Latin Nouns '
ovis'.