pretorian

pretorian is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 2 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.Of or pertaining to a pretor or magistrate; judicial; exercised by, or belonging to, a pretor; as, pretorian power or authority. Pretorian bands or guards, or Pretorians (Rom. Hist.), the emperor's bodyguards, instituted by the Emperor Augustus in nine cohorts of 1,000 men each. -- Pretorian gate (Rom. Antiq.), that one of the four gates in a camp which lay next the enemy. Brande & C.
  2. 2.A soldier of the pretorian guard.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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