A president is a leader of an organization, company, club, trade union, university, country, a division or part of any of these, or, more generally, anything else.
Etymologically, a president is one who presides, (from Latin prae- "before" + sedere "to sit"; giving the term praeses). Originally, the term referred to the presiding officer of a ceremony or meeting (i.e., chairman), but today it most commonly refers to an official. Among other things, "President" today is a common title for the heads of state of most republics, whether popularly elected, chosen by the legislature or by a special electoral college.
Famous quotes containing the word president:
“The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“There is a potential 4-6 percentage point net gain for the President [George Bush] by replacing Dan Quayle on the ticket with someone of neutral stature.”
—Mary Matalin, U.S. Republican political advisor, author, and James Carville b. 1946, U.S. Democratic political advisor, author. All’s Fair: Love, War, and Running for President, p. 205, Random House (1994)