rief
noun
rief is a noun meaning “Alternative form of reif (“robbery”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-I-E-F and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 30 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of rief is riefs.
What does rief mean?
noun
- 1
Alternative form of reif (“robbery”).
[The earl] commands all within his charge to abstain from reiving or stealing from the subjects of Scotland. For such riefs as have been made upon them, the Queen minds to have the same mended by justice.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce rief?
Rief has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of rief
- riefs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is rief?
Rief appears about once in every 30 million words in written English, the 165,739th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does rief come from?
See reaf and reave.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).