Hirtin

Hirtin is a German noun meaning a female shepherd. It is the feminine form of Hirte, the term for a person who tends sheep or other livestock. The feminine suffix -in is a productive way to form female agent nouns in German, so Hirtin denotes a woman who fulfills the role of a shepherd.

In modern standard German, Schäferin is more commonly used to designate a female shepherd, while Hirtin appears chiefly in historical, regional, or literary contexts. The word can appear in pastoral poetry, folk narratives, or descriptions of traditional rural life, where it evokes a bucolic or antique setting. While Hirte can be used as a gender-neutral or masculine term, Hirtin specifies femininity when needed.

As a gender-specific occupational noun, Hirtin is part of a broader pattern in German that forms feminine counterparts with the -in suffix, such as Lehrer/Lehrerinnen or Schäfer/Schäferin. Its usage today is comparatively limited outside stylistic, dialectal, or historical descriptions, but it remains a recognized term in dictionaries and literary texts.