▪ I. heder dial.
(ˈhiːdə(r))
Also 6–7 hidder, 8 heeder.
[f. he + (?) deer: cf. sheder.]
A male sheep; spec. one from eight or nine months old till its first shearing.
| 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Sept. 211 He would haue deuoured both hidder & shidder [gloss. He & she, Male and Female]. 1633 J. Fisher Fuimus Troes iii. ix. in Hazl. Dodsley XII. 507 Hidder, eke, and shidder. 1799 A. Young Agric. Linc. 235 (E.D.S.) They are forced to sell their heeders, and joist their sheeders in the spring. 1851 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XII. ii. 333 A lamb eight or nine months old, and until his first shearing, is called a ‘heder’ or ‘sheder’..or ‘lamb-hog’. Ibid. 341 The ‘heder’ hogs being grazed on the seeds, and the ‘sheders’ on grass. |
▪ II. heder
obs. form of hither.
▪ III. heder
var. chedar.