Definition of "protectorate" [pro•tect•or•ate]

• A relationship of protection and partial control assumed by a superior power over a dependent country or region. (noun)
• The protected country or region. (noun)
• The government, office, or term of a protector. (noun)
• The government of England under Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, ruling as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In East Timor, he set up a highly effective “transitional administration”—yet another euphemism for protectorate—that shepherded the troubled region through exemplary elections to independence and a seat of its own in the UN for the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, the first newborn state of the twenty-first century."
• "But above all, he said, We’re not making Afghanistan a long-term protectorate."
• "He chafed against the implication of coercion in the word imperator: “We could more truly have been titled a protectorate than an empire of the world.”"