shire

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A former administrative division of Great Britain, equivalent to a county.
2. n. A Shire horse.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A share; a portion.
2. n. Originally, a division of the kingdom of England under the jurisdiction of an ealdorman, whose authority was intrusted to the sheriff (‘shire-reeve’), on whom the government ultimately devolved; also, in Anglo-Saxon use, in general, a district, province, diocese, or parish; in later and present use, one of the larger divisions into which Great Britain is parted out for political and administrative purposes; a county. Some smaller districts in the north of England retain the provincial appellation of shire, as Richmond- shire, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and Hallam shire, or the manor of Hallam, in the West Riding, which is nearly coextensive with the parish of Sheffield. See knight of the shire, under knight.
3. n. A shire-moot. See the quotation under shire-day.
4. An obsolete form of sheer.

Wiktionary

1. n. Former administrative area of Britain; a county.
2. n. UK, colloquial The general area in which a person lives, used in the context of travel within the UK:
3. n. A rural or outer suburban local government area of Australia.
4. n. A shire horse

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A portion of Great Britain originally under the supervision of an earl; a territorial division, usually identical with a county, but sometimes limited to a smaller district.
2. n. United States A division of a State, embracing several contiguous townships; a county.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. British breed of large heavy draft horse
2. n. a former administrative district of England; equivalent to a county