Other forms: governors
A governor is somebody in charge of a place or an institution. The governor of a state, a prison governor, a school governor.
In America the governor is the elected head of a state and a genuinely powerful office. In Britain the word usually means an unpaid member of a school's governing body, or the person running a prison, or the head of the Bank of England, which is a very different set of jobs sharing one title. Note the informal British guv or guvnor, a form of address meaning boss, and that a governor is also a mechanical device that limits an engine's speed.
1noungovernorThe elected head of a US state or a province.
“The governor signed the bill in March.”
2nounchargeSomebody in charge of an institution.
“The prison governor gave evidence for two days.”
3nounmemberA member of a school's governing body.
“She has been a governor at the primary for six years.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
governor is somebody in charge.
Greek kybernetes meant a helmsman, and Latin gubernator kept the sense of steering a ship. Governing is steering, and the same Greek word gives cybernetics and so, at several removes, everything with cyber in front of it.
Middle English
governour
English, today
governor
Built from
From Middle English governour. From Middle English governour, from Old French gouvreneur, from Latin gubernator, from Ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (“steersman, pilot, guide”), from κυβερνάω (“to steer, to drive, to guide, to act as a pilot”), of disputed origin. by surface analysis, govern + -or. a doublet of gubernator.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA