SHERIFF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does sheriff mean? 

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

1. the principal law-enforcement officer in a county

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHERIFF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The principal law-enforcement officer in a county

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

law officer; lawman; peace officer (an officer of the law)

 Context examples 

It’s more than our places as sheriff’s officers is worth.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

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)

Sheriff Lee said they arrested one person for urinating in public, technically indecent exposure.

(Millions don't turn up to 'storm' US airbase for extraterrestrial evidence, Wikinews)

But, his joy received a sudden check; for within five minutes, he returned in the custody of a sheriff “s officer, informing us, in a flood of tears, that all was lost. We, being quite prepared for this event, which was of course a proceeding of Uriah Heep's, soon paid the money; and in five minutes more Mr. Micawber was seated at the table, filling up the stamps with an expression of perfect joy, which only that congenial employment, or the making of punch, could impart in full completeness to his shining face. To see him at work on the stamps, with the relish of an artist, touching them like pictures, looking at them sideways, taking weighty notes of dates and amounts in his pocket-book, and contemplating them when finished, with a high sense of their precious value, was a sight indeed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family, in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire; how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff, representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II, with all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married; forming altogether two handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and motto:—Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset, and Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:—Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the second Sir Walter.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The sheriff's office arranged for reinforcements from across Nevada.

(Millions don't turn up to 'storm' US airbase for extraterrestrial evidence, Wikinews)

Another writ has been issued (in His Majesty's High Court of King's Bench at Westminster), in another cause of HEEP V. MICAWBER, and the defendant in that cause is the prey of the sheriff having legal jurisdiction in this bailiwick.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)