Word.ws English Dictionary

tipstaff

tipstaff noun: a ceremonial staff, with a metal tip, carried by a constable or bailiff etc as a sign of office.

Noun

tipstaff (plural tipstaffs or tipstaves)

  1. A ceremonial staff, with a metal tip, carried by a constable or bailiff etc as a sign of office
  2. An officer, of a court etc. who carries such a staff
    • Fire and furies, do a set of boozing tipstaves think to take the man who outwitted Jeffreys and slipped through Kirke's lambs?"1897, Stanley John Weyman, chapter XII, in Shrewsbury

Forms of tipstaff

pluraltipstaffs
pluraltipstaves

Origin of tipstaff

From tip + staff.

Questions about tipstaff

What does tipstaff mean?
Tipstaff means a ceremonial staff, with a metal tip, carried by a constable or bailiff etc as a sign of office.
What part of speech is tipstaff?
Tipstaff is a noun.
What is the plural of tipstaff?
The plural of tipstaff is tipstaffs.

Words near tipstaff in the dictionary

  1. tipsily
  2. tipsiness
  3. tipsinesses
  4. TIPSOCLMB
  5. Tipson
  6. tipstaff
  7. tipstaffs
  8. tipstaves
  9. tipster
  10. tipsters
  11. tipstock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tipstaff (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “tipstaff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tipstaff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.