commissary

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English

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A photo of a small wooden shop with extensive signage advertising its wares and a small bench to sit outside
A commissary (sense 1) in the United States

Etymology

From Late Latin commissarius, from commissus, past participle of committō (“to commit, entrust to”). Doublet of commissar.

Pronunciation

Noun

commissary (plural commissaries)

  1. A store primarily serving persons in an institution, most often soldiers or prisoners.
  2. An account which a prisoner uses to buy provisions, or the balance of that account.
    • 2018, Tayari Jones, An American Marriage, Oneworld Publications, page 183:
      “We tried to provide for you while you were in there. We may not have put as much on your commissary as your in-laws, but what we gave was more to us.”
  3. A cafeteria at a television or movie studio.
  4. One to whom is committed some charge, duty, or office, by a superior power; a commissioner.
    • a. 1631 (date written), J Donne, “The Progress of the Soul”, in Poems, with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: M F for Iohn Marriot, , published 1633, →OCLC, stanza IV, page 3:
      Great Deſtiny the Commiſſary of God;
  5. An officer of the bishop, who exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction in parts of the diocese at a distance from the residence of the bishop.
    • 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani: Or, A Commentary, by Way of Supplement to the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England. , London: D. Leach, and sold by John Walthoe , →OCLC:
      It has been already hinted , that a Commissary, in Latin stiled Commisarius, is a Title of Ecclefiaftical Jurisdiction
  6. An officer who supplies provisions to an army.
  7. (Scots law) The judge in a commissary court.
  8. A higher-ranking police officer.

Coordinate terms

(military shop):

Derived terms

Translations

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