prothonotary

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

• noun The principal clerk in certain courts of law.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A chief notary or clerk.
• noun Specifically — Originally, the chief of the notaries; now, in the Roman Catholic Church, one of a college of twelve (formerly seven) ecclesiastics charged with the registry of acts, proceedings relating to canonization, etc.
• noun In the Gr. Ch., the chief secretary of the patriarch of Constantinople, who superintends the secular-work of the provinces.
• noun In law, a chief clerk of court; formerly, a chief clerk in the Court of Common Pleas and in the King's Bench.

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

• noun A chief notary or clerk.
• noun engraving Formerly, a chief clerk in the Court of King's Bench and in the Court of Common Pleas, now superseded by the master.
• noun A register or chief clerk of a court in certain States of the United States.
• noun (R. C. Ch.) Formerly, one who had the charge of writing the acts of the martyrs, and the circumstances of their death; now, one of twelve persons, constituting a college in the Roman Curia, whose office is to register pontifical acts and to make and preserve the official record of beatifications.
• noun (Gr. Ch.) The chief secretary of the patriarch of Constantinople.
• noun (Zoöl.) a small American warbler (Protonotaria citrea). The general color is golden yellow, the back is olivaceous, the rump and tail are ash-color, several outer tail feathers are partly white.

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

• noun A chief clerk of one of various courts of law.