My kingdom for a word!

[clarentine]

I need a title for a person whose job it is to guard a royal personage with the intent of scaring away anyone who might want to do harm to said royal personage. Guardian is not scary enough. Protector has other specific meanings with regard to royal personages that I am not interested in invoking. Paladin, suggested by Bartleby.com, is associated in my mind with people of shiny good character (thanks so much, Gary Gygax), which need not apply here.

So: what might you suggest for this person encouraged to be a bully, a Doberman (reputation, smarts, capability), a dispenser of warning glares?

(Gosh, it would be nice to be able to just call him a Doberman, but I think he might object.)

Words of foreign derivation are fine if I can make the connotation work. The society in question is not-French, if that helps jog anything loose.

Comments

[eseme]

I think the dog analogy works. Some sort of guard dog.

Maybe try a different breed name than doberman? I'm not a dog person, but I know many breed names are from other languages (and there are some mighty obscure breeds out there).

Otherwise, do something like BabelFish the phrase guard dog...

[clarentine]

I just got the wide-eyed Ooo! Mastiff!

Though I still have the problem of how one addresses My Lord Mastiff. *g*