BAILIFF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bailiff mean? 

• BAILIFF (noun)
  The noun BAILIFF has 1 sense:

1. an officer of the court who is employed to execute writs and processes and make arrests etc.

  Familiarity information: BAILIFF used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BAILIFF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An officer of the court who is employed to execute writs and processes and make arrests etc.

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("bailiff" is a kind of...):

functionary; official (a worker who holds or is invested with an office)

Derivation:

bailiffship (the office of bailiff)

 Context examples 

The archers doffed caps at the sight of it, and the bailiff crossed himself devoutly as he handed it to the robber.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother, cried Emma, about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff from Scotland, to look after his new estate.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He had to reinstate himself in all the wonted concerns of his Mansfield life: to see his steward and his bailiff; to examine and compute, and, in the intervals of business, to walk into his stables and his gardens, and nearest plantations; but active and methodical, he had not only done all this before he resumed his seat as master of the house at dinner, he had also set the carpenter to work in pulling down what had been so lately put up in the billiard-room, and given the scene-painter his dismissal long enough to justify the pleasing belief of his being then at least as far off as Northampton.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Young clerk, said the bailiff, you speak of that of which you know nothing.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Grant's bailiff, I believe I had better keep out of his way; and my brother-in-law himself, who is all kindness in general, looked rather black upon me when he found what I had been at.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Bear in mind too, that it is Herward the bailiff for whom you pray, and not Herward the sheriff, who is my uncle's son.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A minute later the bailiff and four of his men rode past him on their journey back to Southampton, the other two having been chosen as grave-diggers.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Besides, bethink you how low is our purse, with bailiff and reeve ever croaking of empty farms and wasting lands.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

'The man, the woman and their litter'—so ran the words of the dotard bailiff.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“There is little merit in this confession,” quoth the bailiff sternly.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)