Banffshire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A former county in the northeast of Scotland, now largely absorbed into the Aberdeenshire and Moray council areas
2. An historic county in northeastern Scotland whose territory now lies mostly within Aberdeenshire and Moray
3. Former Scottish county on the Moray Firth coast, abolished in the local government reforms of 1975

Etymology: Banffshire is a historic county in northeast Scotland, and its name is a plain combination: "Banff" is the name of the town on the Moray Firth coast, and "-shire" is the English word for a county, ultimately from Old English "scir," meaning a division or care. So the name simply means "the shire of Banff," the county built around that town. The suffix does most of the work here. Scotland adopted the English system of shires, and many of its counties took the pattern of a town name followed by "-shire," such as Aberdeenshire and Renfrewshire. Banffshire follows the same arrangement. Because the county was named for its administrative centre, the word tells you where the power sat when the name was fixed. Banff itself is a small harbour town, and the name of the county is still its own.