Definition of "commissary"

commissary

/ˈkɒm.ɪ.s(ə)ɹi/

noun
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.
  Quotations
  “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.”
  2018, Tayari Jones, An American Marriage, Oneworld Publications, page 183
3. A cafeteria at a movie studio.
4. One to whom is committed some charge, duty, or office, by a superior power; a commissioner.
  Quotations
  Great Deſtiny the Commiſſary of God;
  a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “The Progress of the Soul”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, stanza IV, page 3
5. An officer of the bishop, who exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction in parts of the diocese at a distance from the residence of the bishop.
  Quotations
  It has been already hinted , that a Commissary, in Latin stiled Commisarius, is a Title of Ecclefiaftical Jurisdiction
  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 […]
6. An officer who supplies provisions to an army.
7. (Scotland, law) The judge in a commissary court.
8. A higher-ranking police officer.

Englia uses cookies to improve user experience.