Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A provincial governor of consular rank in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire.
  • noun A high administrator in one of the modern colonial empires.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In ancient Rome, an officer who discharged the duties and had, outside of Rome itself, most of the authority of a consul, without holding the office of consul.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Rom. Antiq.) An officer who discharged the duties of a consul without being himself consul; a governor of, or a military commander in, a province. He was usually one who had previously been consul.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A magistrate who served as a consul and then as the governor of a province

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an official in a modern colony who has considerable administrative power
  • noun an anthropoid ape of the genus Proconsul
  • noun a provincial governor of consular rank in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin prōcōnsul, from prō cōnsule, in place of the consul : prō, instead of; see pro– + cōnsule, ablative of cōnsul, consul; see consul.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin prōcōnsul.

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