Shreve

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name of English origin, borne by people with this surname ; a small village in Wayne County, Ohio, in the United States
2. Used as a surname traced to English roots ; the name of a small community located in north-central Ohio
3. A personal family name carried by various individuals ; a tiny rural village within Wayne County in the American state of Ohio

Etymology: "Shreve" is an old spelling of "shrieve," a word for a sheriff, and its history runs back to the Anglo-Saxon division of England into shires. The Old English "scirgerefa" joined "scir," meaning shire or district, to "gerefa," an official or steward. The shire-reeve was the king's officer who ran a county, and "sheriff" is the same word after centuries of wear. The spelling "shreve" keeps an older pronunciation that the modern form has lost, and the name has since travelled to places far from England. The American city of Shreveport in Louisiana is named after Henry Miller Shreve, a steamboat captain who cleared a large log jam on the Red River. That honour gave the surname a new life, though it is a personal name rather than a separate English word.

Synonyms: shrive, absolve, confess