reeve
Any of several local officials, with varying responsibilitiesAny of several local officials, with varying responsibilities.
» Their small town had a reeve instead of a mayor.
casaniere · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
4 senses(historical)Any of several local officials, with varying responsibilities.
(Canada)The president of a township or municipal district council.
(historical)The holder of a proposed but unadopted commissioned rank of the Royal Air Force, equivalent to wing commander.
Graf
A female of the species Philomachus pugnax, a highly gregarious, medium-sized wading bird of Eurasia; the male is a ruff.
female ruff
Examples
2 sentencesTheir small town had a reeve instead of a mayor.
I like that movie where Keanu Reeves says, "Whoa."
Translations
2 languagesBy meaning 1
Origin
From Middle English reve, from Old English rēfa, an aphetism of ġerēfa (also grœ̄fa), fromFrom Middle English reve, from Old English rēfa, an aphetism of ġerēfa (also grœ̄fa), from Proto-West Germanic *garāfijō (“officer, official”). Compare Danish greve, Swedish greve, Dutch graaf, German Graf.
Variant of dialectal ree, but of obscure ultimate origin.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: reevesSynonyms
1 synonymsWord family
9 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.