Prefect

How to spell prefect

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce prefect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prefect mean?

1. nounA senior pupil given authority to help maintain discipline among other students.
2. nounA senior official or magistrate placed in charge of a district, department, or body of troops.

Prefect in a sentence

• As head prefect, she organised the rota for the lunch queue.

• The regional prefect signed the order closing the flooded roads.

• Every prefect wore a special badge to mark their rank.

• In ancient Rome a prefect commanded the city guard.

Where does prefect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin praefectus, meaning 'one placed in charge' or 'overseer', which began life as the past participle of the verb praeficere, 'to set over' or 'to put in front'. That verb was assembled from prae, meaning 'before' or 'in front', and facere, meaning 'to make' or 'to do', so the literal sense was someone made to stand at the head of others. In the Roman world a praefectus was a high official appointed to command troops or govern a region, and that administrative flavour survived into French, where a prefet still heads a local department. English borrowed the word in the late Middle Ages, and by the nineteenth century British schools had adopted it for a senior pupil given authority over younger ones. The spelling trap is the opening pre- (from prae, 'before'), which is easy to muddle with the unrelated 'perfect', even though the two words share the same facere ancestor.

How the word is built

• pre- (from prae: before, in front)
• fect (from facere: to make, to set) = one set in front, placed in charge