Word.ws English Dictionary

præfect

præfect is the archaic form of prefect.

Meaning of prefect

Noun

prefect (plural prefects)

  1. (historical) An official of Ancient Rome who controlled or superintended a particular command, charge, department, etc.
    • the prefect of the aqueducts; the prefect of a camp, of a fleet, of the city guard, or of provisions; the pretorian prefect, who was commander of the troops guarding the emperor's person
  2. The head of a department in France.
  3. The head of a county in Albania or Romania.
  4. The head of a prefecture in Japan.
  5. (UK) A school pupil in a position of power over other pupils.
  6. A commander.

See all 7 meanings of prefect

Forms of præfect

pluralpræfects

Questions about præfect

What is præfect the archaic form of?
Præfect is the archaic form of prefect.

Words near præfect in the dictionary

  1. præface
  2. præfaced
  3. præfaces
  4. præfacing
  5. præfatory
  6. præfect
  7. præfecture
  8. præfectures
  9. præfer
  10. præfer'd
  11. præferable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: præfect (page history and authors); prefect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “præfect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pr%C3%A6fect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.