shire (n.) Look up shire at Dictionary.com
Old English scir "administrative office or district," from Proto-Germanic *skizo (cf. Old High German scira "care, official charge"). Ousted since 14c. by Anglo-French county (q.v.). The gentrified sense is from The Shires (1796), used by people in other parts of England of those counties that end in -shire; sense transferred to the hunting country of the Midlands (1860).