sheriff
sher·iff/ˈʃɛɹɪf/noun, verb
sheriff is spelled S-H-E-R-I-F-F, 2 syllables: sher·iff. The wrong spelling people search most is sherrif: about 1,440 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Sheriff is a noun meaning “(High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law…”. The plural of sheriff is sheriffs.
How many letters and syllables are in sheriff?
| Letters | 7: S-H-E-R-I-F-F |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: sher·iff |
| In writing | 14 times per million words; the 5,496th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, sherrif, about 1,440 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell sheriff?
Sheriff is spelled S-H-E-R-I-F-F. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for sheriff in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is sheriff?
Sheriff appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,496th 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).
How do you pronounce sheriff?
- /ˈʃɛɹɪf/
- /ˈʃɛɹəf/
Sheriff has 2 syllables, split sher·iff in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-sheriff.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-sheriff.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of sheriff
- sheriffs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- sheriffing participle, present
- sheriffed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sheriff mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
UK(High Sheriff) An official of a shire or county office, responsible for carrying out court orders, law enforcement and other duties.
- 2
ScotlandA judge in the sheriff court, the court of a county or sheriffdom.
- 3
USA 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.
verb
- 1
To carry out the duties of a sheriff.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Sheriff in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense all meanings:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sheriff come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).