overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sheriff.

(High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law enforcement and other duties.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʃɛɹɪf//ˈʃɛɹəf/

  1. (High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law enforcement and other duties.

    UK

  2. A judge in the sheriff court, the court of a county or sheriffdom.

    Scotland

  3. 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.

    US
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English shirreve, in turn inherited from Old English sċīrġerēfa, corresponding to shire + reeve. There is no etymological connection to sharif (Arabic شَرِيف (šarīf)), an Arabic title of honour with cognates in other languages, including Persian, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

verb/ˈʃɛɹɪf//ˈʃɛɹəf/

  1. To carry out the duties of a sheriff.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English shirreve, in turn inherited from Old English sċīrġerēfa, corresponding to shire + reeve. There is no etymological connection to sharif (Arabic شَرِيف (šarīf)), an Arabic title of honour with cognates in other languages, including Persian, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

sheriff has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

sheriff studiosheriff workshello, sheriff

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.