provost: [OE] A provost is etymologically an official ‘placed before’ others – that is, put in charge of them. The word’s ancestor is Latin praepositus ‘superintendent’, a noun use of the past participle of praepōnere, a compound verb formed from the prefix prae- ‘in front’ and pōnere ‘put’ (source of English position, post, etc). In medieval Latin a variant form prōpositus emerged, which was borrowed into Old English as profost. This was supplemented in Middle English by the Anglo-Norman form provost. => position
