reeve
Plural: reeves
Noun
- female ruff
- Any of several local officials, with varying responsibilities.
- The president of a township or municipal district council.
- The holder of a proposed but unadopted commissioned rank of the Royal Air Force, equivalent to wing commander.
- A female of the species Philomachus pugnax, a highly gregarious, medium-sized wading bird of Eurasia; the male is a ruff.
Verb
Verb Forms: reeved, rove, roven, reeving, reeves
- To pass a rope or cable through a hole or block.
- pass a rope through
- "reeve an opening"
- pass through a hole or opening
- "reeve a rope"
- fasten by passing through a hole or around something
- To pass (a rope) through a hole or opening, especially so as to fasten it.
Examples
- He had to REEVE the shoelace through the eyelets carefully.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English reve, from Old English rēfa, an aphetism of ġerēfa (also groefa), 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.
Synonyms
Scrabble Score: 8
reeve: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordreeve: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
reeve: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary