eldertongue

Modern English → Old English

Old English word for sheriff

3 headwords match “sheriff”, ranked by the scoring in the data pipeline. The five strongest follow; scirgerefa ranks first.

  1. 1

    scirgerefa

    score 22

    noun, masculine · weak · 4 inflected forms

    sheriff — sheriff, chief officer of a shire

    • opens the headword's definition
    • listed as an English descendant
    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular sċīrġerēfa
    genitive singular sċīrġerēfan
    dative singular sċīrġerēfan
    accusative singular sċīrġerēfan
    nominative plural sċīrġerēfan
    genitive plural sċīrġerēfena
  2. 2

    scirmann

    score 6

    noun, masculine · strong consonant stem · 5 inflected forms

    sheriff — a ruler of a shire

    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    nominative singular sċīrmann
    genitive singular sċīrmannes
    dative singular sċīrmenn
    accusative singular sċīrmann
    nominative plural sċīrmenn
    genitive plural sċīrmanna
  3. 3

    scir

    score 4

    adjective · 10 inflected forms

    sheriff — office (status of an official)

    • has a full inflection table
    Paradigm summary
    strong nominative singular masculine sċīr
    strong nominative singular feminine sċīr
    strong nominative singular neuter sċīr
    strong accusative singular masculine sċīrne
    strong accusative singular feminine sċīre
    strong accusative singular neuter sċīr

How this ranking works

Scores are computed once, when the site is built, from the Wiktionary data. Every headword whose definitions mention “sheriff” gets the points below; the candidates are then sorted by total. The score is shown on each entry above so the order can be checked rather than trusted.

The English word opens the headword's definition+10
It appears later in the first definition+6
It appears in any definition+3
It is in the headword's links+2
It is listed as an English descendant (etymological evidence)+9
The headword has an inflection table+3
Part of speech is a proper noun−5
Part of speech is a verb (-ian derivations are noisy)−3
The headword is an alternative form−6
The first definition is longer than three words−2

A candidate has to be a real headword with its own entry: inflected forms and grammatical terminology (genitive, nominative, preterite, …) never appear here.

Not one of these?

The match may be a different sense of “sheriff”, or an inflected form rather than a headword. Look up the form directly — the entry page marks the grammatical case.

Candidates derived from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each entry links to its source page. · CC BY-SA 4.0 and attribution · CC BY-SA 4.0