shrieve

noun

1. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete form of sheriff.

   “Please it your Majesty, here is the shrieve of Northamptonshire, with certain persons that of late committed a riot, and have appealed to your Majesty beseeching your Highness for special cause to hear them.”

   “I know him: he was a botcher's 'prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve's fool with child: a dumb innocent that could not say him nay.”

verb

1. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete form of shrive.

   “[…]he ordered [father Jerome] to be called and shrieve the prisoner.”

   “He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.”

   “The jealous churl hath deeply swore, That, if again he venture o’er, He shall shrieve penitent no more.”

2. (obsolete)To question.

   “But afterwards she gan him soft to shrieve, And wooe with fair intreatie, to disclose Which of the nymphes his heart so sore did mieve:”