Roman History. an official, usually a former consul, who acted as governor or military commander of a province, and who had powers similar to those of a consul.
any appointed administrator over a dependency or an occupied area.
an administrator or governor of a colony, occupied territory, or other dependency
(in ancient Rome) the governor of a senatorial province
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin prōconsul; see pro- 1, consul
< New Latin (1933), equivalent to pro- pro- 1 + Consul, allegedly the name of a chimpanzee in a London zoo (with a pun on Latin prōconsul proconsul ); the genus was thought to be ancestral to the chimpanzee
In ancient Rome, the governor of a province was called a proconsul. During wartime, proconsuls had their terms extended beyond the usual year. Each Roman province had its own proconsul, who was appointed by an elected consul. The word comes from the Latin pro, "in place of," and consul, "magistrate." In ancient Rome, most of these positions were filled by experienced officials who had previously served as consuls. In modern times, proconsul is still used for some officials whose authority is delegated to them by another government official; modern proconsuls often serve as diplomats in foreign countries.
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Before his own death in 14 CE, Augustus arranged for his stepson Tiberius to receive from the Senate the power of a proconsul and a tribune.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
The Senate immediately appointed him proconsul or governor of all Roman frontier provinces, which made him effectively the commander of the entire Roman army.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
To some locals, it was a caricature of a colonial proconsul inspecting his troops.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 25, 2022
Conference tributes came also from Yale alumnus L. Paul Bremer III, the former American proconsul of Iraq's Green Zone in 2003; from former U.S.
From Salon ● May 8, 2021
“He looks a little like my proconsul, Marcus. We could call him Marcus.”
From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman
And many researchers have thought that a large-bodied, 18-million-year-old ape called Proconsul from Kenya offered the best model for the ancestor of all apes.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 29, 2015
If so, Pliobates knocks Proconsul from its perch as the previous closest ancestor and suggests “the last common ancestor of great apes and lesser apes looked nothing like chimpanzees or gorillas,” Alba says.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 29, 2015
The chimp-size fossil primate Proconsul africanus, which lived in east Africa 30 million years ago, had been described as sitting in the family tree of both ape and man.
From Time Magazine Archive
So Proconsul must have been an ape, perhaps an ancestor of modern apes but not of non-brachiating man.
From Time Magazine Archive
Amongst the spectators were Venusta, Nika, and the Proconsul; but they were not on the side of the Christians.
From Saronia A Romance of Ancient Ephesus by Short, Richard
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
