coadjutor

noun

Etymology: From Middle English coadjutowre, from Old French coadjuteur, borrowed from Late Latin coadiūtōrem, from co- + adiūtor (“helper”), from adiuvō (“to help”) + -tor (agent suffix). By surface analysis, co- + adjutor. The French derivation gave the accentuation co⁠ˈadjutor (used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge), but the poets generally, since 1600, appear to have coa⁠ˈdjutor, after Latin. No Latin *coadiuvō or *coadiūtō is recorded, but in the modern languages words have been formed on these types, suggested by coadjutor.

1. An assistant or helper.

   “Then have the lady patronesses and their active coadjutors, whether noble or ignoble, all the work of beating up for recruits to go over again.”

   “The mountaineer, with all his pulses aquiver, looked down into his coadjutor’s white, startled face.”

2. An assistant to a bishop.

   “When old age rendered any Bishop unable to perform his duties, the first example of which occurs AD 211, when Alexander became coadjutor to Narcissus at Jerusalem”

   “August then appointed Prince George III of Anhalt (who was both a theologian and a priest as well as a prince) to be his coadjutor in spiritual matters.”