reeve

Multiple Entries:
  reeve    ruff  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
reeve1

▶noun

• 1 historical a local official, in particular the chief magistrate of a town or district in Anglo-Saxon England.

• 2 Canadian the elected leader of a village or town council.

– origin OE rēfa; rel. to grieve2.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
reeve2

▶verb (past and past part. rove or reeved) Nautical thread (a rope or rod) through a ring or other aperture.

– origin C17: prob. from Du. reven (see reef2).

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
reeve3

▶noun a female ruff (bird).

– origin C17: var. of dial. ree, of unknown origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
ruff1

▶noun

• 1 a projecting starched frill worn round the neck, characteristic of Elizabethan and Jacobean costume.

• 2 a projecting or conspicuously coloured ring of feathers or hair round the neck of a bird or mammal.

• 3 a pigeon of a domestic breed with a ruff of feathers.

• 4 (pl. same or ruffs) a North Eurasian wading bird, the male of which has a large ruff and ear tufts in the breeding season. [Philomachus pugnax; the female is called a reeve.]

– derivatives
ruffed adjective.

– origin C16: prob. from a var. of rough.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
ruff2

▶noun

• 1 (also tommy ruff) an edible marine fish of Australian inshore waters. [Arripis georgianus.]

• 2 variant spelling of ruffe.

– origin C19: from ruffe.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
ruff3

▶verb (in bridge and whist) play a trump in a trick which was led in a different suit.

■ play a trump on (a card).

▶noun an act of ruffing or opportunity to ruff.

– origin C16 (orig. the name of a card game): from OFr. rouffle (perh. an alt. of Ital. trionfo ‘a trump’).

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
ruff4

▶noun Music one of the basic patterns (rudiments) of drumming, consisting of a single note preceded by either two grace notes played with the other stick or three grace notes played with alternating sticks.

– origin C17: prob. imitative.