[ab-uh
t] 
| a man who is the head or superior, usually elected, of a monastery. |
[ab-uht] | ab·bot (āb'ət) n.
[Middle English abbod, from Old English, from Late Latin abbās, abbāt-, from Greek abbā, abbās, from Aramaic 'abbā, my father; see  b in Semitic roots.] |
abbot
the superior of a monastic community that follows the Benedictine Rule (Benedictines, Cistercians, Camaldolese, Trappists) and of certain other orders (Premonstratensians, canons regular of the Lateran). The word derives from the Aramaic ab ("father"), or aba ("my father"), which in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and in New Testament Greek was written abbas. Early Christian Egyptian monks renowned for age and sanctity were called abbas by their disciples, but, when monasticism became more organized, superiors were called proestos ("he who rules") in the East and the Latin equivalent, praepositus, in the West.
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