sherriff
"sherriff" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sherriff” is uncommon English (frequency #83,746 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #83,746
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Obsolete form of sheriff.
Corpus desk
Index EN-sherriff · sherriff · English
sherriff · rank #83,746 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #83,746
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH shero
Nearest frequency peer: shero (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “sherriff”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Sheetz
Sheetz
16,260 corpus weight
- shero
shero
16,256 corpus weight
- sherriff
sherriff
16,255 corpus weight
- shored
shored
16,253 corpus weight
- showery
showery
16,252 corpus weight
- showoff
showoff
16,251 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “sherriff” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sherriff |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #83,746 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sherriff” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
sherriff is uncommon English at frequency #83,746 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Obsolete form of sheriff.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sherriff, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is sherriff, spelled S-H-E-R-R-I-F-F.
Definition
- 1Obsolete form of sheriff.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how sherriff appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
One of these proprietors is a magistrate of Oxfordshire, another a justice of the peace for Berkshire, and Stewart, who was a tailor's trotter, originally, was lately high sherriff ^([sic]) of his county.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sherriff", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
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- Usage frequency rank #83,746 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "S" letter cohort. S–Z browse
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PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.