Prosecutor

How to spell prosecutor

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce prosecutor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prosecutor mean?

1. nounA lawyer who conducts the case against a defendant in a criminal court on behalf of the state.

Prosecutor in a sentence

• The prosecutor presented new evidence to the jury on the second day of the trial.

• A senior prosecutor was assigned to handle the high-profile fraud case.

Where does prosecutor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb prosequi, meaning 'to follow up' or 'to pursue', formed from pro 'forward' and sequi 'to follow'. Its past-participle stem prosecut gave rise to a person who 'follows through' on a matter, and the agent suffix -or marked the doer. English adopted 'prosecute' in the fifteenth century in the broad sense of carrying something through to completion, and only later did it narrow to the legal sense of pursuing a case in court. The noun 'prosecutor', for the official who brings and conducts a criminal charge, settled into legal English by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The same sequi root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'sequence', 'consecutive', and 'pursue', and remembering that family helps fix the single -cu- in the middle and the agent ending -or rather than -er.

How the word is built

• pro- (forward)
• secut (from Latin sequi: to follow, pursue)
• -or (agent noun: one who does)