The Collaborative International Dictionary
Claviger \Clav"i*ger\, n. [L., fr. clavis key + gerere to carry.] One who carries the keys of any place. [1913 Webster] ||
Claviger \Clav"i*ger\, n. [L., fr. clava club + gerere to carry.] One who carries a club; a club bearer.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"one who carries a club," c.1600, from Latin claviger (an epithet of Hercules), from clava "club, knotty branch" + stem of gerere "to bear" (see gest).
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. One who carries a club; a club bearer. Etymology 2
n. One who carries the keys to a place; a keyholder.
Wikipedia
Claviger is a genus of beetles in the family Staphylinidae, subfamily Pselaphinae. About 40 species and subspecies are described, divided into two subgenera, Claviger (Claviger) and Claviger Clavifer. Claviger displays unusual biological adaptations to myrmecophily. This pselaphid is of palearctic distribution.
Usage examples of "claviger".
General Claviger was of the number, that well-known constructor of scientific frontiers in India or Africa.
Even if it had been provided with a sufficient number of troops, in addition to its clavigers, to fend off the attacks of the autochthons, zoanthrops, and cultellarü who roamed the countryside, not to mention the armed retinues of the petty exultants (who could never be relied upon), it would still have been impossible to provision without the services of an army to escort the supply trains.
At the time I was lictor, it held no more than our administrative offices, a barracks for the clavigers, and my own living quarters.
Instead, the prisoners were chained along the walls of the shaft, each with a stout iron collar about his neck, in such a way as to leave a path down the center wide enough that two clavigers could walk it • abreast without danger that their keys might be snatched away.
I labored over documents until afternoon, then borrowed a layman's jelab from the sergeant of my clavigers and went out hoping to encounter her.
I wanted to suggest that you take a couple of our clavigers when you go down to the city.
Far worse was the thought of the clavigers I had until now commanded fanning out from the Vincula.
The clavigers at the entrance would leave their posts and hurry up the steep trail to the cliff top to see who had tampered with the reservoir there.
Executions and other major acts of judicial punishment are personally performed by him, and he supervises the activities of the clavigers ("those with keys").