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governor

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governor

1. the ruler or chief magistrate of a colony, province, etc.
2. the representative of the Crown in a British colony
3. Brit the senior administrator or head of a society, prison, etc.
4. the chief executive of any state in the US
5. Engineering a device that controls the speed of an engine, esp by regulating the supply of fuel, etc., either to limit the maximum speed or to maintain a constant speed
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

governor

[′gəv·ə·nər]
(mechanical engineering)
A device, especially one actuated by the centrifugal force of whirling weights opposed by gravity or by springs, used to provide automatic control of speed or power of a prime mover.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

governor

A type of control to ensure that certain types of equipment, like high-pressure fuel pumps, operate at the desired speed. A governor has a sensor to measure the speed, a datum from which the equipment speed is referenced, and a control to adjust the speed to align it with the datum. See overspeed governor.
An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Governor

 

(1) In present-day bourgeois states, the highest official in a territorial unit. For example, in the USA a governor is the executive head of a state, popularly elected from among candidates nominated by the leading bourgeois parties. In Denmark each of the 25 districts is headed by a governor appointed by the king. In Great Britain a governor is an official appointed by the British government to administer a colony.

(2) In prerevolutionary Russia, the highest government official in a province, who performed administrative, police, and military functions.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Mentioned in
References in classic literature
We would rather abide by your decision, O Excellency Our Governor."
The Governor read, not for the first time, the administration reports of one John Jorrocks, M.F.H.
The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church!
Candor, however, demands an acknowledgment that I do not think the claim of the governor to a right of nomination well founded.
Upon this the governor said to the woman, "Let me see that purse, my worthy and sturdy friend." She handed it to him at once, and the governor returned it to the man, and said to the unforced mistress of force, "Sister, if you had shown as much, or only half as much, spirit and vigour in defending your body as you have shown in defending that purse, the strength of Hercules could not have forced you.
"Will you see the register at once," asked the governor, "or proceed to the other cell?"
The Governor, and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition.
"Believe me, my dear governor," said Aramis, drawing closer to Baisemeaux, "a young king is well worth an old cardinal.
At about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England.
'Wish I may die,' cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, 'if I warn't a goin' to say the self-same words to you, T'otherest Governor!'
But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the room and began to say something in French.
"Dear Cecily and all the rest of you," wrote the Governor's wife, "I want to ask you to forgive me for pretending to be Aunt Eliza.
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