shrievalty

plural shrievalties

1. The office, jurisdiction, or tenure of a sheriff (chiefly in reference to the British office; uncommon in reference to the American office).

   He ought to do something to make his shrievalty memorable .

   1911, Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Brother Copas

   4 more examples

   After discourse of this, and of supplying the garrison with some more horse, we rose; and Sir J. Minnes and I home again, finding the street about our house full, Sir R. Ford beginning his shrievalty to-day and, what with his and our houses being new painted, the street begins to look a great deal better than it did, and more gracefull.

   1663, Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, September/October 1663

   --Can any of your readers inform me the origin of the delivery of water-buckets, glazed and painted with the city arms, given to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex at the expiration of the year of their shrievalty?

   1851, Various, Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851

   John Timbs, in his Walks and Talks about London, tells us that Phillips's colleague in the shrievalty was one Smith, who afterwards became Lord Mayor: The personnel of the two sheriffs presented a sharp contrast.

   1913, Clement King Shorter, George Borrow and His Circle

   The district court granted the shrievalty to contestor Shaw! Shaw pointed out that he had lost the income from the shrievalty for eighteen months and deserved recompense. However, Paul was unwilling to concede this claim. Shaw served out the last months of Paul's term, […]

   1996 March 1, Larry D. Ball, Desert Lawmen: The High Sheriffs of New Mexico and Arizona Territories, 1846-1912, UNM Press, →ISBN

   Synonyms: sheriffalty, sheriffdom