præpostor

plural præpostors

1. archaicArchaic form of praepostor.

   He rose, always in spite of himself, into the Doctor’s form, and for the last two years or so of his time was among the præpostors, though he never rose into the upper half of them.

   1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter XLIV, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 195

   2 more examples

   The master mounted into the high desk by the door, and one of the præpostors of the week stood by him on the steps, the other three marching up and down the middle of the school with their canes, calling out “Silence, silence!”

   1857, [Thomas Hughes], “Rugby and Foot-Ball”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part I, pages 110–111

   A History paper was lately set, at a girls’ school, on a certain period of English history—say the Reformation. One question was: “Mention the person in your period who interests you most, and give your reasons.” During the examination some female præpostor or other subaltern was sitting with the girls, some of whom asked, “Does ‘your period’ mean our period?” “Yes,” said the invigilatrix, if that is the word for the fair looker-on.

   1911 January 7, Andrew Lang, “At the Sign of St. Paul’s: Andrew Lang on Scott and Golf, Ghosts, and Literary Examinations”, in The Illustrated London News, volume CXXXVIII, number 3742, London: [T]he Illustrated London News and Sketch, Limited, page 16, column 3