Sherreve

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic term for the king's chief officer in a shire, responsible for law enforcement and collecting royal revenue
2. A historical title for the official who once governed a county on behalf of the crown and kept the peace there
3. Old English name for the local magistrate of a shire, the forerunner of the modern sheriff in England

Etymology: Sherreve is an Old English compound, from "scir" (a shire, or district) and "gerefa" (a reeve, an official or steward). The shire-reeve was the king's officer in charge of a shire, collecting royal revenues, presiding over the local court and keeping order. Over time the title's pronunciation and spelling wore down, and by the later Middle Ages it had become "sheriff," a term that survives in modern English for the county official. The first element, "scir," is a sound-cognate of "shire," which is the same word in its older form. So a sheriff's title is literally "shire-officer," and the word "shire" has been lost from its own compound.