governor
Pluralgovernors
- 1The official who heads the government of a state, province, territory, or colony, either elected, as in US states, or appointed to represent a monarch or central government.
The governor vetoed the budget passed by the state legislature.
Each state elects its own governor to a fixed term of office.
UsageThe place can come either way: the governor of Ohio or the Ohio governor. Capitalized before a name: Governor Lee.
- 2A member of a decision-making body for a large organization or public agency, similar to a member of a board of directors, used especially of banks.
The board of governors voted to approve next year's budget.
She was the only governor on the central bank's board to vote against raising interest rates.
UsageUsually a governor of a bank, school or hospital, or one of the board of governors.
Note
Banking is where this title is most at home. It names one seat on a body, like the seven-member Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, whose members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. When one person runs the bank, as at the People's Bank of China, the title means the head of an institution instead.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The Federal Reserve System has a seven-member Board of Governors whose members are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. federalreserve.gov
- The governor of the People's Bank of China heads the institution. en.wikipedia.org
- 3The head of an institution, for example a country's central bank or, in British use, a prison.
Markets rallied after the central bank governor hinted that interest rates would fall.
The governor of the prison resigned after inspectors criticized conditions in the cells.
Note
Context decides which kind of head is meant. In British use a prison governor is the official who runs the prison, the post an American calls a warden, so to a US reader the phrase can briefly suggest the head of a state. At most central banks the governor is the one person in charge, whose hints about interest rates are read closely; at the Federal Reserve, governors are board members instead.
Less common meanings
- 4A device that automatically regulates or controls an action of a machine through feedback.
On a diesel generator, the governor adjusts the fuel supply so the engine keeps a steady speed as the load changes.
Mechanics adjusted the governor to cap the delivery truck's top speed.
Note
Machinery inherited the steersman's job: a governor holds an engine to its course with no hand on the controls. Its most familiar task is capping speed. Joseph Stromberg recounts a 1923 petition, signed by 42,000 Cincinnati residents, to require every car to have a governor limiting it to 25 miles per hour.
- 5
- 6A form of address used when speaking to a man, often a customer or someone regarded as being in charge.
Carry your bags up to the platform, governor?
Anything else I can get you, governor?
Note
A British way of hailing a man, now dated. In speech and in spelling it is often clipped to guv'nor. It treats the listener as the boss, the person in charge, and it was often used by someone offering a service. Today it sounds like a period voice, so it suits historical fiction or deliberate humor better than an everyday greeting.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Governor is a British form of address to a man. en.wiktionary.org
- Guv'nor is a shortened representation of governor. gutenberg.org
- The address treats the listener as a superior or boss. en.wiktionary.org
- 7A person's own father (the parent himself, not a guardian or tutor), often spoken of as "the governor".
'The governor has agreed to pay my debts,' he told his brother, 'as long as I never go near a card table again.'
"Say 'father.' We never called him papa; and if one of my brothers had addressed him as 'governor,' as boys do now, I really think he'd have him cut off with a shilling."
1869, Louisa May Alcott, An Old-Fashioned GirlNote
Boys' talk for a father, and once a little cheeky. In Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl (1869), a speaker recalls that her father would have cut off with a shilling any son who called him "governor," as boys did by then. The word stood apart from the fond papa and the proper father, casting the parent as the man in charge.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Boys used governor for their father, and it could be considered disrespectful. gutenberg.org
- Louisa May Alcott wrote An Old-Fashioned Girl. gutenberg.org
- A female character says her father would have disinherited a son who addressed him as governor. gutenberg.org
- The passage distinguishes governor from papa and father. gutenberg.org
- 8A person responsible for the care, guardianship, or tutoring of a young man.
The young lord's governor accompanied him on the grand tour.
His parents engaged a strict governor to oversee his studies.
Note
A household role rather than a public office. This governor combined the duties of private tutor and guardian, overseeing a youth's education, conduct and welfare, often while he traveled abroad. The sense is dated. In present-day writing, use tutor or guardian, and keep governor for period settings where a young gentleman's minder is meant.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- This sense describes private household employment rather than public office. en.wikisource.org
- A governor could combine tutoring with responsibility for a young man's care. en.wiktionary.org
- The role included supervision beyond teaching. en.wikisource.org
- Such tutors commonly accompanied young men abroad. en.wikisource.org
- 9A word or constituent in a phrase that grammatically governs another, determining its form.
- 10A person who steers a vessel and directs its course; a pilot or helmsman.
Practice
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Origin
It came through Old French from Latin gubernator, "steersman," which was built on a Greek word meaning "to steer." So a governor is like someone who steers.