bitesheep

English

Alternative forms

• biteshipe

Etymology

From bite +‎ sheep. Possibly an intentional, satirical corruption of, or pun on, bishop, to imply one who bites the flock he should be protecting (compare English sheep-biter).

Noun

bitesheep (plural bitesheeps)

1. (obsolete, derogatory, dysphemistic) A bishop, particularly a Catholic bishop persecuting Protestants.
   • c. 1556, John Foxe, “A Letter of John Careless, answering to the loving Epistle or Letter sent to him before by Master John Philpot”, in Rev. Stephen Reed Cattley, editor, The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe, volume 8, London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, published 1839, page 172:

     Wherefore mine advice and most earnest desire is, with all other of your loving friends, that you still keep that order with those bloodthirsty bitesheeps (bishops, I should say) that you have begun. For though in conclusion they will surely have your blood, yet shall they come by it with shame enough, and to their perpetual infamy while the world doth endure.

   • 1578 December 15, A. Dolm, [A Letter]; republished in “Diarium Secundum”, in The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay‎^[1], London: David Nutt, 1878, Februarius 1579, page 149:

     Wherfore the bitesheepe and the recorder beinge owtragiously moved agaynst him, contrary to all justice all Law th[e]y condemned him to bee whipped at a Carts tayle and to bee boored through the eare w^th a hot iron, w^ch was executed in most dispitful and cruellest manner that might bee executed to any Rooge, […]

   • [1860 April, Edward Augustus Freeman, “Saint Thomas of Canterbury and His Biographers”, in The National Review; republished as Historical Essays, London: Macmillan and Co., 1875, page 95:

     If Thomas is rather fond of calling Geoffrey Riddell Archidiabolus instead of Archidiaconus, was it not the established joke of the Reformation to call a Bishop a Bitesheep, and to turn Cardinal Poole into Carnal Fool?]

Related terms

• sheep-biter
• sheep-biting