shrievalty
Dec. 28th, 2018 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordshrievalty (SHREE-vuhl-tee) - n., the office, term, or jurisdiction of a sheriff.
In England and Wales, anyway, as in Scotland they use sheriffdom instead. The term is not much used in the United States, despite sheriff being an important office -- specifically, the main local law enforcement outside of incorporated cities is the county's sheriff and their deputies (exceptions: Alaska and Connecticut). The word form looks a little odd unless you know that sheriff is a contraction of shire reeve, and then shrieve more easily reads as an alternate contraction, to which -alty was added on the model of mayoralty.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
In England and Wales, anyway, as in Scotland they use sheriffdom instead. The term is not much used in the United States, despite sheriff being an important office -- specifically, the main local law enforcement outside of incorporated cities is the county's sheriff and their deputies (exceptions: Alaska and Connecticut). The word form looks a little odd unless you know that sheriff is a contraction of shire reeve, and then shrieve more easily reads as an alternate contraction, to which -alty was added on the model of mayoralty.
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
