black sheep
1
4.2
- noun
- /blæk ʃip/
:
oveja negra
- And the ewes gave birth to black sheep.
Examples
-
As we walked through the pasture, we spotted a black sheep standing out distinctly against the white sheep.
-
After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.
-
Most of the Peters' family were dressed in scarlet and gray, with one black sheep standing out among them.
Blog text (19) -
Seeing the spurts of dust and then looking back down the lane toward the neighbor's garden and seeing one of the neighbor's black sheep grazing right next to the garden made the boy laugh.
Fiction book (1990) -
In the flock of white sheep, there was one black sheep that captured everyone's attention.
-
The farmer pointed out a black sheep grazing alone, highlighting its uniqueness among the white ones.
Surface Forms
Morphology
black + sheep
The phrase evokes the literal image of a black animal set apart from a flock, so a learner who knows 'black' and 'sheep' might guess it refers to someone different or singled out. However, the specific evaluative meaning 'a disgrace or outcast' is a cultural/idiomatic extension not directly predictable from the constituents, so the relation is partly but not fully transparent (and similar metaphors exist cross-linguistically).
Etymology
The noun black sheep comes from a real animal: a black sheep stands out in a flock of white sheep because its dark wool is rare, so the word describes something or someone who is different or unusual.