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''reeve'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260917235303-00-⌔

reeve - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

reeve (plural reeves)

  • (historical) Any of several local officials, with varying responsibilities.
    • ✤ His first convert was the reeve of the city of Lincoln called Blæcca,…1
  • (Canada) The president of a township or municipal district council.
  • (military, historical) The holder of a proposed but unadopted commissioned rank of the Royal Air Force, equivalent to wing commander.
    • ✤ A list of new titles was manufactured as follows: Ensign, Lieutenant, Flight-Leader, Squadron-Leader, Reeve, Banneret, Fourth-Ardian, Third-Ardian, Second-Ardian, Ardian, Air Marshal. […] “Reeve”, perhaps, savoured a little too much of legal authority.2

Verb

reeve (third-person singular simple present reeves, present participle reeving, simple past and past participlereeved or rove)

  • (nautical, dialect) To pass (a rope) through a hole or opening, especially so as to fasten it.
    • ✤ “Let the rope go,” he says. With his other hand he reaches down and reeves the two turns from the stanchion.3

Noun

reeve (plural reeves)

  • A female of the species Philomachus pugnax, a highly gregarious, medium-sized wading bird of Eurasia; the male is a ruff.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ɹiːv/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -iːv
  • Homophones: reave; (th-fronting) rethe, wreathe

Etymology 1

From 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.

The role, and eventually the word, was mostly replaced by bailiff, of Anglo-Norman origin.

Etymology 2

Apparent alternative form of reef (“to pull or yank strongly”, verb) or from Dutch reven (“to take in, insert”).

Etymology 3

Variant of dialectal ree, but of obscure ultimate origin.

Printed 2026-09-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1999, Bede, edited by Judith McClure and Roger Collins, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People ‎, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 99: ↩

  2. 1936, The Periodical, volumes 21-22, Oxford University Press, page 67: ↩

  3. 1930, William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, Library of America, published 1985, page 98: ↩

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