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Probate Court, or Court of Probate, a court for the probate of wills. -- Probate duty, a government tax on property passing by will. [Eng.]

An officer who discharged the duties of a consul without being himself consul; a governor of, or a military commander in, a province. He was usually one who had previously been consul.

Under the government of a proconsul; as, a proconsular province.

A governor of a province under the emperors; also, one who had charge of the imperial revenues in a province; as, the procurator of Judea. Procurator fiscal (Scots Law), public prosecutor, or district attorney.

llness or exuberance; bountiful; exceedingly liberal; giving without stint; as, a profuse government; profuse hospitality. A green, shady bank, profuse of flowers. Milton.

A magistrate who, having been pretor at home, was appointed to the government of a province. [Written also proprætor.]

To protract; to prolong; to extend. [Obs.] He prorogued his government. Dryden.

er before a legal tribunal, and pursuing them to final judgment on behalf of the state or government, as by indictment or information.

e person who institutes and carries on a criminal suit against another in the name of the government. Blackstone.

to destroy; to deprive of efficiency; to ruin; as, to prostrate a village; to prostrate a government; to prostrate law or justice.

eligious order, etc. Lord Protector (Eng. Hist.), the title of Oliver Cromwell as supreme governor of the British Commonwealth (1653-1658).

Government by a protector; -- applied especially to the government of England by Oliver Cromwell.

o provide against the inclemency of the weather; to provide for the education of a child. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Burke.

A country or region, more or less remote from the city of Rome, brought under the Roman government; a conquered country beyond the limits of Italy. Wyclif (Acts xiii. 34). Milton.

Of or pertaining to province; constituting a province; as, a provincial government; a provincial dialect.

ision for the time being; -- used of partial or temporary arrangements; as, a provisional government; a provisional treaty.

One who is governed by, or acts from, prudential motives. [R.] Coleridge.

In the United States, a free primary, grammar, or high school maintained by the local government.

f nature and nations; one who is versed in the science of public right, the principles of government, etc. The Whig leaders, however, were much more desirous to get rid of Episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and logicians. Macaulay.

quality or circumstance; requisite capacity or possession. There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. Burke.