Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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 {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.