sheriff

• sherriff, shrieve (obsolete)

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɛɹɪf/, /ˈʃɛɹəf/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sher‧iff
• Rhymes: -ɛɹɪf, -ɛɹəf

sheriff (plural sheriffs)

1. (British, except Scotland) (High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law enforcement and other duties.
2. (Scotland) A judge in the sheriff court, the court of a county or sheriffdom.
3. (US) 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.

• → Dutch: sheriff
• → Portuguese: xerife

sheriff (third-person singular simple present sheriffs, present participle sheriffing, simple past and past participle sheriffed)

1. (transitive) To carry out the duties of a sheriff. (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

• hatti-sherif (etymologically unrelated)

• Shiffer

Borrowed from English sheriff.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɛ.rɪf/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: she‧riff
• Rhymes: -ɛrɪf

sheriff m (plural sheriffs, diminutive sheriffje n)

1. sheriff

• van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “sheriff”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute

• sheriff on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl

Unadapted borrowing from English sheriff.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃeɾif/ [ˈʃe.ɾif]
• Rhymes: -eɾif

sheriff m (plural sheriffs)

1. sheriff (all senses)

   Synonym: alguacil

   • 2025 January 2, Alaa Elassar, “El conductor del Tesla Cybertruck se disparó antes de la explosión, dice la policía”, in CNN en Español‎^[1]:

     Las autoridades no están identificando a Livelsberger como la persona encontrada dentro del Cybertruck porque el cuerpo encontrado dentro del vehículo estaba quemado hasta quedar irreconocible, dijo el sheriff de Las Vegas, Kevin McMahill, en una conferencia de prensa este jueves.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “sheriff”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025
• Manuel Seco; Olimpia Andrés; Gabino Ramos (3 August 2023), “sheriff”, in Diccionario del español actual [Dictionary of Current Spanish] (in Spanish), third digital edition, Fundación BBVA [BBVA Foundation]