adjutant

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A staff officer who helps a commanding officer with administrative affairs.
2. n. An assistant.
3. n. See marabou.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Helping; assistant. Bullokar (1676).
2. n. A helper; an assistant; an aid.
3. n. Milit., properly, a regimental staff-officer appointed to assist the commanding officer of a regiment in the discharge of the details of his military duty. The title is also given to officers having similar functions attached to larger or smaller divisions of troops, to garrisons, and to the War Department of the United States government. (See adjutant-general.) Adjutants are also assigned, as in the British army, to divisions of artillery. Formerly, in England, called aid-major. Often contracted to adjt.
4. n. The adjutant-bird (which see).

Wiktionary

1. n. military A lower-ranking officer who assists a higher-ranking officer with administrative affairs.
2. n. An assistant.
3. n. zoology A bird in the genus Leptoptilos of the stork family Ciconiidae.
4. adj. The noun used as a modifier (e.g. adjutant officer).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A helper; an assistant.
2. n. (Mil.) A regimental staff officer, who assists the colonel, or commanding officer of a garrison or regiment, in the details of regimental and garrison duty.
3. n. (Zoöl.) A species of very large stork (Ciconia argala), a native of India; -- called also the gigantic crane, and by the native name argala. It is noted for its serpent-destroying habits.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer
2. n. large Indian stork with a military gait