The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pretorian \Pre*to"ri*an\, a. [L. praetorians: cf. F. pr['e]torien.] Of or pertaining to a pretor or magistrate; judicial; exercised by, or belonging to, a pretor; as, pretorian power or authority.
Pretorian bands or Pretorian guards, or Pretorians (Rom. Hist.), the emperor's bodyguards, instituted by the Emperor Augustus in nine cohorts of 1,000 men each.
Pretorian gate (Rom. Antiq.), that one of the four gates in
a camp which lay next the enemy.
--Brande & C.
Pretorian \Pre*to"ri*an\, n. A soldier of the pretorian guard.
Wiktionary
a. (alternative spelling of praetorian English) n. (alternative spelling of praetorian English)
WordNet
adj. of or relating to a Roman praetor; "praetorial powers" [syn: praetorian, praetorial, pretorial]
characteristic of Praetorian soldiers in respect to corruption or political venality; "a large praetorian bureaucracy filled with ambitious...and often sycophantic people makes work and makes trouble"- Arthur M.Schlesinger Jr. [syn: praetorian]
Usage examples of "pretorian".
Thus the Pretorian guard became more and more important in Rome as Rome became more and more luxurious and feeble.
The number of desperate and long-drawn actions which have ended, according to the official Pretorian account, in a loss of one wounded burgher may in some way be better policy, but does not imply a higher standard of public virtue, than those long lists which have saddened our hearts in the halls of the War Office.
The heavy guns had also arrived, and a huge cloud of debris rising from the Pretorian forts told the accuracy of their fire.
Then Spike remembered he had promised Dr Sydney Gottlieb, a Pretorian, that he would visit his old school.
London cinema house in a spectacular feature in which he bad played the role of a Roman soldier of the Pretorian Guard.
If her Pretorian bands are not furnished with employment on her external enemies, I fear they will recall the old, or set up some new cause.
Nero killed himself lest he fall into the hands of Otho and the Pretorian guards.