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Glite Dictionary
Shetland sheepdog

Shetland sheepdog

5.8
A small dog with a long thick coat that looks like a small collie
  • noun
  • /ˈʃɛt.lənd ˈʃip.dɔɡ/
translation icon : perro pastor de Shetland

Examples

  • Rocky, a therapy-registered Shetland sheepdog.

    Academic text (1997)

  • We put a dog guide harness on Grinch, an oversized, Delta-certified, obedience-titled Shetland sheepdog.

    Academic text (1997)

  • My Shetland sheepdog, Max, loves to herd the ducks in the yard.

  • The Shetland sheepdog is known for its intelligence and agility in herding tasks.

  • During the show, the judge praised the beautiful coat of the Shetland sheepdog.

Synonyms

Sheltie
vsShetland sheepdog
1 3.5

A small dog with a long thick coat like a Shetland sheepdog

is the full formal name rather than the short informal name
Shetland
vsShetland sheepdog
6.8

A small dog like a collie that herds sheep

focuses more on long thick coat and herding function

Surface Forms

Shetland sheepdog singular
Shetland sheepdogs plural

Morphology

Shetland + sheepdog

The meaning is directly compositional: 'sheepdog' is a dog bred for herding sheep and 'Shetland' is a place name, so a Shetland sheepdog is a sheepdog from the Shetland Islands. This place-name + noun formation is regular and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Shetland sheepdog comes from the islands of Shetland, where farmers bred a small sheepdog to look after and move their groups of sheep. That's why the name means 'a small herding dog originally from Shetland'.