magistrate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A civil officer with power to administer and enforce law, as:
2. n. A local member of the judiciary having limited jurisdiction, especially in criminal cases.
3. n. A minor official, such as a justice of the peace, having administrative and limited judicial authority.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Magistracy.
2. n. An administrator of the law; one who possesses jurisdiction or executive authority in matters of civil government; an executive or judicial officer holding the power of decision and disposal in regard to subjects within his cognizance: as, a king is the first magistrate of a monarchy; in the United States the President is often called the chief magistrate; the magistrates of a state or city; civil or judicial magistrates. But the word is more particularly applied to subordinate officers to whom some part of executive judicial power is committed or delegated.
3. n. Specifically, a minor judicial officer; a justice of the peace, or a police justice; in Scotland, a provost or a bailie of a burgh: as, to be brought before the bar of the local magistrate.
4. n. In the New Testament, a Roman military governor or pretor.

Wiktionary

1. n. law A judicial officer with limited authority to administer and enforce the law. A magistrate's court may have jurisdiction in civil or criminal cases, or both.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A person clothed with power as a public civil officer; a public civil officer invested with the executive government, or some branch of it.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a lay judge or civil authority who administers the law (especially one who conducts a court dealing with minor offenses)