I never heard this definition of proctor before. I knew it only as term for monitors in college exams, and for low rank faculty members who got room and board for helping keep order in the dorms. At least, where I went.


'What is a proctor, Steerforth?' said I.

'Why, he is a sort of monkish attorney,' replied Steerforth. 'He is, to some faded courts held in Doctors' Commons, - a lazy old nook near St. Paul's Churchyard - what solicitors are to the courts of law and equity. He is a functionary whose existence, in the natural course of things, would have terminated about two hundred years ago. I can tell you best what he is, by telling you what Doctors' Commons is. It's a little out-of-the-way place, where they administer what is called ecclesiastical law, and play all kinds of tricks with obsolete old monsters of acts of Parliament, which three-fourths of the world know nothing about, and the other fourth supposes to have been dug up, in a fossil state, in the days of the Edwards. It's a place that has an ancient monopoly in suits about people's wills and people's marriages, and disputes among ships and boats.'

proctor

SYLLABICATION: proc·tor
PRONUNCIATION: prktr
NOUN: A supervisor especially of an examination or dormitory in a school.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: proc·tored, proc·tor·ing, proc·tors
To supervise (an examination).
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English procutor, proctour, university officer, manager, from procuratour. See procurator.
OTHER FORMS: proc·tori·al (-tôr-l, -tr-) —ADJECTIVE
proctor·ship —NOUN

I am happy to report that the etymology of "proctor" differes from that of "proctology":
proctology

SYLLABICATION: proc·tol·o·gy
PRONUNCIATION: prk-tl-j
NOUN: The branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of disorders affecting the colon, rectum, and anus.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek prktos, anus + –logy.
OTHER FORMS: procto·logic (-t-ljk) , procto·logi·cal (--kl) —ADJECTIVE
procto·logi·cal·ly —ADVERB
proc·tolo·gist —NOUN