What Does “A Meinie of Sheep” Mean?
“Meinie” (sometimes spelled “meiny”) is a genuinely old word, tracing back to Middle English, where it referred to a household, retinue, or company of followers, essentially the group of people attached to and following a lord or leader. Its application to sheep likely draws on this same “following” imagery, sheep famously tend to follow one another closely, a behavior that made them easy to imagine as a kind of humble retinue.
The word has almost entirely vanished from everyday modern English outside of historical texts and collective-noun lists like this one, a genuine linguistic relic from an era when English vocabulary for social relationships and hierarchy was considerably richer and more specific than it is today. “A meinie of sheep” is a nice example of how some collective nouns survive not because the underlying word stayed useful, but simply because it got attached early to an animal and carried along in reference lists ever since.
Example: “The old text described a meinie of sheep trailing behind the shepherd along the lane.”
Related: Collective Nouns for Mammals · What Is a Group of Sheep Called?