shire
noun
one of the counties of Great Britain.
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shire
1 American
[shahyuhr]
/ ʃaɪər /
noun
shires
plural
-
one of the counties of Great Britain.
-
the Shires, the counties in the Midlands in which hunting is especially popular.
Shire
2
American
[shahyuhr]
/ ʃaɪər /
noun
Shiré
3
American
[shee-rey]
/ ˈʃi reɪ /
noun
shire
1
British
/ ʃaɪə /
noun
-
-
one of the British counties
-
( in combination )
Yorkshire
-
-
(in Australia) a rural district having its own local council
-
See shire horse
-
the Midland counties of England, esp Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, famous for hunting, etc
Shire
2
British
/ ˈʃɪəreɪ /
noun
shire
3
British
/ ʃaɪə /
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of shire1
before 900; Middle English; Old English scīr office of administration, jurisdiction of such an office, county
Origin of Shire2
1875–80; apparently so called because it was bred in the shires, i.e., those counties of west and central England whose names end in -shire
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"It was a bit of a shock for Sammy the shire when she went out in the field and the two thoroughbreds whizzed around the field like two racehorses," she added.
From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2023
"She was used to a dopey shire and was taken aback by these foals zooming around her."
From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2023
More recently, his works have also provided a fertile shire for nationalists who see themselves in his heroic archetypes.
From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2022
A giant metal box sits in a field next to the shire council: one of several air-quality monitoring stations paid for by the mining and power-generating industries.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2021
There were dappled Percherons from France and shire geldings of tremendous size built to bear the weight of men in armor.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
Discovery revealed in May 2024 that it was heading back to the Shire with two new films.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
Spoken-word artists have found popular acclaim, from Gil Scott-Heron to Kae Tempest and Warsan Shire on Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2025
Reform's George Finch, 19, has become the youngest permanent council leader in the UK during the vote at the council's Shire Hall headquarters in Warwick on Tuesday.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2025
The Progress Flag has since been removed from Shire Hall following the end of Pride Month.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2025
The second disappearance of Mr. Bilbo Baggins was discussed in Hobbiton, and indeed all over the Shire, for a year and a day, and was remembered much longer than that.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
An appointment was made for January at the mouth of the river Ruo, a tributary of the Shiré, where the Bishop was to meet them.
From The Personal Life of David Livingstone by Blaikie, William Garden
Tanganyika would thus go to Nyassa—down the Shiré into the Zambesi and the sea, if a passage existed even below ground.
From The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 by Waller, Horace
The aggressors were the neighboring warlike tribe of Ajawa, and their victims were the Manganja, the inhabitants of the Shiré Valley.
From The Personal Life of David Livingstone by Blaikie, William Garden
It seemed that it would be better in the meantime to reach the lake by the Zambesi and the Shiré, so the party returned.
From The Personal Life of David Livingstone by Blaikie, William Garden
The people were industrious; in the Upper Shiré, notwithstanding a great love of beer, they lived usually to a great age.
From The Personal Life of David Livingstone by Blaikie, William Garden
Look at the surnames of Londoners compared to those in the shires.
From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2017
The 1,200 constituents who showed up for his forum — residents of Hollywood, Burbank, Silver Lake — are terrified of what’s been wrought by the faraway shires of Oshkosh, Grand Rapids, Erie and Dayton.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2017
The American Edward Payson Weston had attempted to walk 2,000 miles around the shires of England in exactly 1,000 hours, missing by just a few miles.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2014
Railing at wind farms from his perch in his favorite pub in the Kent countryside, Farage tries to articulate the fading voice of the English shires.
From Newsweek ● Mar. 11, 2013
It is a tribute to the spirit of sanitary reform which—as an example in one special direction—has brought about the disestablishment of urban cow-sheds and the consequent demand for milk produced in the shires.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
