shire
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ʃaɪə/
ipa: /ʃaɪ(ə)ɹ/
rhymes: -aɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: shires
form: shiring
form: shired
form: shired
Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English schire (“region, shire, county”) [and other forms], from Old English sċīr (“administrative region under an alderman and sheriff, shire; district under a governor or official; status of an official, office”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *skīru (“district; status of an official, office”); further etymology uncertain, possibly related to Latin cūra (“care, concern; administration, charge, management; command, office”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷeys- (“to heed; to see”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Senses: examples: text: County Longford was shired in 1586.
text: [I]t made no Matter, if the Countrie vvere never ſhired, nor her Majesties VVritt othervviſe curraunt then it is; for humblye he kepeth all his People ſubiect to Obedience and good Order; […]
ref: 1575 December 26 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Henry Sidney, “Sir Henry Sydney to the Lords of the Councell”, in Arthur Collins, Letters and Memorials of State, in the Reigns of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, King Charles the First, Part of the Reign of King Charles the Second, and Oliver’s Usurpation. […], volume I, London: […] T[homas] Osborne, published 1746, →OCLC, page 83:
text: [pages 209–210] But vvhether it vvere ſo eſtabliſhed Egbert, Alfred, or Edvvard, vvhen they had brought it to a Monarchy, and Shired it out into parts, or that they vvere appointed Earls in every County, vvhich had an Inheritance therein, and had Juriſdiction, as by the County Court and Sheriffs Turns, it vvould ſeem it vvas: Is the Queſtion I deſire to be reſolved of. […] [page 211] But thus I do conjecture it to be, That at the firſt Unitining^([sic – meaning Uniting?]) of the Heptarchy of the Saxons, and the Shiring out of the Kingdom, it vvas divided into Shires, and the Shires again into Hundreds, as it fell out, in ſome more, in ſome leſs: […]
ref: a. 1604 (date written), Sampson Erdeswicke, edited by Simon Degge, A Survey of Staffordshire. […], London: […] E[dmund] Curll, […], published 1717, →OCLC, pages 209–211:
text: The history of the shiring of Ireland is involved in more obscurity than the history of the shiring of England, though not for the same reason in the two cases. […] [T]he shiring of Ireland was purely the result of the English conquest.
ref: 1889, Charles F. Keary, “Counties, The Irish”, in Sidney J[ames Mark] Low, F. S. Pulling, editors, The Dictionary of English History, London; Paris: Cassel & Company, […], →OCLC, page 324, column 1:
text: In Ulster the great chieftains had become peers of the realm. The province was shired into nine counties, with sheriffs and the whole apparatus of English local government.
ref: 1998, James Lydon, “The End of the Old Order”, in The Making of Ireland: From Ancient Times to the Present, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 160:
text: [T]raditionally the shiring of England is thought to have been the work of Edward the Elder and Æthelstan, and the appearance of the shire reeve is placed somewhat later; but recent work suggests that developments may have been more gradual, with shiring first becoming systematic under Edgar and his successors and the shire reeve emerging as part of this process.
ref: 2016, Levi Roach, “Birth and Childhood: The Court of King Edgar, c. 966×9–75”, in Æthelred the Unready, New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 26:
glosses: To constitute or reconstitute (a country or region) into one or more shires (noun sense 1.1) or counties.
Derived terms: unshired