alderman

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A member of the municipal legislative body in a town or city in many jurisdictions.
• noun A member of the higher branch of the municipal or borough council in England and Ireland before 1974.
• noun A noble of high rank or authority in Anglo-Saxon England.
• noun The chief officer of a shire in Anglo-Saxon England.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In the Anglo-Saxon period of English history, a title meaning at first simply chieftain or lord, but later used specifically to denote the chief magistrate of a county or group of counties.
• noun Hence In modern usage, a magistrate of a city or borough, next in rank to the mayor.
• noun In England, a half-crown: a meaning explained by Brewer as containing an allusion to the fact that an alderman is a sort of half-king.
• noun A turkey.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun obsolete A senior or superior; a person of rank or dignity.
• noun One of a board or body of municipal officers next in order to the mayor and having a legislative function. They may, in some cases, individually exercise some magisterial and administrative functions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A member of several municipal legislative bodies in a city or town.
• noun obsolete, slang A roasted turkey, called an alderman in chains or an alderman hung in chains if garnished with sausages. (1811 Dictionary of Vulgar Tongue)
• noun slang A man's potbelly.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a member of a municipal legislative body (as a city council)