Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Sheriff |
SheriffNoun1. The principal law-enforcement officer in a county. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "sheriff" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1380. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | SHERIFF, n. In America the chief executive office of a country, whose most characteristic duties, in some of the Western and Southern States, are the catching and hanging of rogues. John Elmer Pettibone Cajee (I write of him with little glee) Was just as bad as he could be. 'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon! The sun has never looked upon So bad a man as Neighbor John." A sinner through and through, he had This added fault: it made him mad To know another man was bad. In such a case he thought it right To rise at any hour of night And quench that wicked person's light. Despite the town's entreaties, he Would hale him to the nearest tree And leave him swinging wide and free. Or sometimes, if the humor came, A luckless wight's reluctant frame Was given to the cheerful flame. While it was turning nice and brown, All unconcerned John met the frown Of that austere and righteous town. "How sad," his neighbors said, "that he So scornful of the law should be -- An anar c, h, i, s, t." (That is the way that they preferred To utter the abhorrent word, So strong the aversion that it stirred.) "Resolved," they said, continuing, "That Badman John must cease this thing Of having his unlawful fling. "Now, by these sacred relics" -- here Each man had out a souvenir Got at a lynching yesteryear -- "By these we swear he shall forsake His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache By sins of rope and torch and stake. "We'll tie his red right hand until He'll have small freedom to fulfil The mandates of his lawless will." So, in convention then and there, They named him Sheriff. The affair Was opened, it is said, with prayer. J. Milton Sloluck. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of seeing a sheriff, denotes that you will suffer great uneasiness over the uncertain changes which loom up before you. To imagine that you are elected sheriff or feel interested in the office, denotes that you will participate in some affair which will afford you neither profit nor honor. To escape arrest, you will be able to further engage in illicit affairs. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Sheriff refers both to a political or legal office held under English common law or American common law, and to the person who holds such office.
Modern Usage
In the United States a sheriff is generally the highest elected law-enforcement officer of a county. The political election of a person to serve as a police leader is a uniquely American tradition. All law-enforcement officers working for the agency headed by a sheriff are called deputy sheriffs (in common usage often shortened to deputy) and are so called because they are deputized by the sheriff to perform the same duties as him or her.
In the USA, the relationship between the sheriff and other police departments varies widely from state to state, and indeed in some states from county to county. In some counties, the sheriff can be the most powerful figure, but in other jurisdictions the sheriff may do little more than keep the jail, transport prisoners, and/or provide courthouse security.
Many U.S. cities and some counties have a chief of police who is the actual head of the police department. The chief of police is usually not an elected office.
In many U.S. jurisdictions, the sheriff also has duties with regard to service of process and summonses that are issued by state courts. The sheriff also often conducts auction sales of real property in foreclosure in many jurisdictions, and is often also empowered to conduct seizures of chattel property that is being seized to satisfy a judgment.
History
Like the word sheriff itself, the office of sheriff has an interesting history. In Anglo-Saxon England, a reeve was an officer who was appointed by the king to be responsible for the public business of the locality. A high-ranking official, the shire-reeve was the representative of the royal authority in a shire or county. The office of sheriff was continued after the Norman conquest.
The most famous holder of this office was the folkloric Sheriff of Nottingham, enemy of Robin Hood.
Fictional sheriffs
Many western movies feature sheriffs of frontier towns who are either corrupt, weak, or glorious heroes eventually able to rid their town of all its mean elements. See Destry Rides Again and Dodge City for two examples of the latter type.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Sheriff."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Jurisdiction | Judge; tribunal; municipality, corporation, bailiwick, shrievalty; lord lieutenant, sheriff, shire reeve, shrieve, constable; selectman; police, police force, the fuzz; constabulary, bumbledom, gendarmerie. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Sheriff Farley (Tombstone; writing credit: Kevin Jarre.) Sheriff murdered, crops burned, stores looted, people stampeded, and cattle raped (Blazing Saddles; writing credit: Andrew Bergman; Mel Brooks) Mom! I am not you, I'm not gonna get pregnant at 16, I'm not gonna stay here for the rest of my life and be a trailer trash sheriff! (Eight Legged Freaks; writing credit: Ellory Elkayem; Randy Kornfield) I love you Sheriff Truman (Twin Peaks; writing credit: G. William Jones) Hey boy, where is Sheriff Branford at (Smokey and the Bandit; writing credit: Hal Needham; Robert L. Levy) | |
Lyrics | All of a sudden I see sheriff John Brown (I SHOT THE SHERIFF; performing artist: Eric Clapton) I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy, oh no. (I SHOT THE SHERIFF; performing artist: Eric Clapton) Sheriff John Brown always hated me; (I SHOT THE SHERIFF; performing artist: Eric Clapton) The sheriff he did follow (On the Road to Fairfax County; performing artist: The Roches) Lena Horne and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek (National Brotherhood Week; performing artist: Tom Lehrer) | |
Tongue Twisters | Sheath thy sword, the surly sheriff said, "or surely shall a churlish serf soon shatter thee. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Sheriff (1971) Sissy Sheriff (1967) Short-Term Sheriff (1964) Sheriff Boothill Mc Gall (1961) The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The sheriff, two deputies, and Miller. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | With Captain Buck Owings and with Sheriff Giles Birdsong he was closeted perhaps ten minutes. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Enter Roarin' Bill, Sheriff of Red Gulch. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Sheriff Duke Kahanamoku of Honolulu swears in Mickey Rooney, adorned in leis, as deputy. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Cordy Tindell Vivian, leading prayer outside Selma, Ala. courthouse where he was arrested by Sheriff Jim Clark (center). Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Sheriff Street Market, Cleveland, O[hio]. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Deputy sheriff and constable talking, Mogollon, New Mexico. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | A Franklin, merchant talking to the sheriff. Heard County, Georgia. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Arizona small town sheriff. Duncan, Arizona. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Sheriff at rodeo in Ashland, Montana. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Date | Quotation |
Magna Carta | 1215 | No sheriff, constable, coroners, or others of our bailiffs, shall hold pleas of our Crown. (reference) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Title | Author | Quote |
King Richard III | Shakespeare, William | SHERIFF. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Human Rights | Latvia | A major difficulty in enforcing court decisions is the continuing lack of an effective bailiff or sheriff system. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Sheriff" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 56.99% of the time. "Sheriff" is used about 843 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 56.99% | 480 | 12,390 |
| Noun (proper) | 43.01% | 363 | 14,875 |
| Total | 100.00% | 843 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "sheriff" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Sheriff | Last name | 1,000 | 12,949 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
Expressions using "sheriff": deputy sheriff ♦ pocket sheriff ♦ sheriff court ♦ Sheriff Officer. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "sheriff": Sheriff-clerk, sheriff-depute, sheriff-principal, sheriff-substitute. | |
Ending with "sheriff": Jusu-sheriff, under-sheriff. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "sheriff"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | sherif. (various references) | |
Arabic | نقيب شرطة, عمدة المدينة, عمدة (mayor, provost), شريف (honorable, honourable, noble, noble origin, proper, reputable, upstanding, virtuous). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | шериф. (various references) | |
Chinese | 郡治安官 , 警长 (Sheriffs). (various references) | |
Czech | šerif. (various references) | |
Dutch | sheriff, landrechter. (various references) | |
Esperanto | ŝerifo. (various references) | |
Farsi | کلانتر (Marshal, Reeve), کدخدا (Reeve), ضابطشهربانی , داروغه . (various references) | |
Finnish | nimismies (head of the constabulary, rural police chief). (various references) | |
French | shérif. (various references) | |
German | sheriff, friedensrichter (justice of the peace, magistracy, magistrate, magistrates). (various references) | |
Greek | σερίφησ, αρχικλητήρ, αστυνόμοσ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | שריף. (various references) | |
Hungarian | seriff, fõispán. (various references) | |
Italian | sceriffo. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | シェリー' (shell, shell-script, shelter, Sherpa, sherry), 保安官 (peace officer). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ほあ"か" (peace officer), シェリフ . (various references) | |
Korean | 보안관 (Sheriffs). (various references) | |
Manx | shirrym. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | eriffshay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | xerife. (various references) | |
Romanian | prefect (prefect), şerif (bailiff, Marshal, shereef, sherif). (various references) | |
Russian | шериф. (various references) | |
Scottish | siorram. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | šerif. (various references) | |
Spanish | sheriff, primer presidente del tribunal de un condado, gobernador civil, alguacil (alguazil, bailiff, beadle, constable, Marshal). (various references) | |
Swedish | fogde (bailiff, Marshal, portreeve, reeve). (various references) | |
Turkish | seçimle gelen sınırlı yetkili yönetici, kraliçeyi temsil eden yönetici, kasaba polis şefi, şerif (shereef, sherif). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | шериф (shereef, sherif). (various references) | |
Welsh | sirydd. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Sumerian | 3100 BCE-2500 BCE | makim. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "sheriff": sheriffdom, sheriffdoms, sheriffs. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "sheriff": undersheriff. (additional references) | |
Words containing "sheriff": undersheriffs. (additional references) | |
| |
"Sheriff" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: heiff, Seriff, Sharaf, Sharief, sharif, Sharifa, Sharifi, Sheref, sherife, Sheriffe, sherrif, sherriff, Sherriffe, shrif, shriff, Shroff, Zaharoff. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "sheriff" (pronounced she"ruf) |
| 4 | -e" r u f | tariff. |
| 3 | -r u f | dandruff, Woodruff. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-f-f-h-i-r-s" | |
-1 letter: fifers, fisher, sherif. | |
-2 letters: fiefs, fifer, fifes, fires, fresh, fries, frise, heirs, hires, reifs, riffs, serif, shier, shire. | |
-3 letters: effs, fehs, fief, fife, fire, firs, fish, heir, hers, hies, hire, ires, refs, reif, reis, resh, rife, riff, rifs, rise, seif, serf, shri, sire. | |
-4 letters: eff, efs, ers, feh, fer, fie, fir, her, hes, hie. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-f-f-h-i-r-s" | |
+1 letter: sheriffs, whiffers. | |
+2 letters: whifflers. | |
+3 letters: firefights, fisherfolk, frameshift, frogfishes, sheriffdom, surffishes. | |
+4 letters: chiffoniers, chifforobes, frameshifts, frenchifies, raffishness, reshuffling, sheriffdoms. | |
+5 letters: cliffhangers, firefighters, foresightful, undersheriff, whiffletrees. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Historic 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Names: Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Translations: Ancient 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
