English Online Dictionary. What means sheriff? What does sheriff mean?
English
Alternative forms
- sherriff, shrieve (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English shirreve, from Old English sċīrġerēfa, corresponding to shire + reeve. There is no etymological connection to Sharif (شَرِيف (šarīf)), an Arabic title of honour that has cognates in other languages including Hindi, Urdu, Portuguese, etc.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈʃɛɹɪf/, /ˈʃɛɹəf/
- Rhymes: -ɛɹɪf, -ɛɹəf
Noun
sheriff (plural sheriffs)
- (British, except Scotland) (High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law enforcement and other duties.
- (Scotland) A judge in the sheriff court, the court of a county or sheriffdom.
- (US) A government official, usually responsible for law enforcement in their county and for administration of the county jail, sometimes an officer of the court, usually elected.
Derived terms
Translations
Verb
sheriff (third-person singular simple present sheriffs, present participle sheriffing, simple past and past participle sheriffed)
- (transitive) To carry out the duties of a sheriff. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
See also
- hatti-sherif (etymologically unrelated)
Anagrams
- Shiffer
Spanish
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from English sheriff.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈʃeɾif/ [ˈʃe.ɾif]
- Rhymes: -eɾif
- Syllabification: she‧riff
Noun
sheriff m (plural sheriffs)
- sheriff (all senses)
- Synonym: alguacil
Usage notes
According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.
Further reading
- “sheriff”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28