chancellor

Meaning

Noun

• A senior secretary or official with administrative or legal duties, sometimes in charge of some area of government such as finance or justice.
• The head of the government in some German-speaking countries.
• A senior record keeper of a cathedral; a senior legal officer for a bishop or diocese in charge of hearing cases involving ecclesiastical law.
• The head of a university, sometimes purely ceremonial.
• The foreman of a jury.
• The chief judge of a court of chancery (that is, one exercising equity jurisdiction).

Origin

• From Anglo-Norman or Middle English chaunceler, chanceler, canceler, from Old French cancelier, chancelier, from Late Latin cancellārius ("secretary; doorkeeper, porter; usher of a court of law stationed at the bars separating the public from the judges"), from Latin cancellī (plural of cancellus, diminutive of cancer, from Proto-Italic *karkros ("enclosure"), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ("to bend, turn")) + -ārius.
• The word was present as Late Old English canceler, cancheler, from Norman cancheler, but was displaced in the 13th century by the Old French and Anglo-Norman forms mentioned above.