prefect
Sign in to savePrefect (from the Latin praefectus, substantive adjectival form of praeficere: "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
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Encyclopedic overview
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- Ancient Rome
- Feudal times
- Ecclesiastical
- {{anchor|Modern sub-national administration}}Modern sub-national administration
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Prefect (from the Latin praefectus, substantive adjectival form of praeficere: "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.
A prefect's office, department, or area of control is called a prefecture, but in various post-Roman Empire cases there is a prefect without a prefecture or vice versa. The words "prefect" and "prefecture" are also used, more or less conventionally, to render analogous words in other languages, especially Romance languages.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “prefect” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.