Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A uniformed attendant, such as a doorman.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An attendant attached to hotels in continental Europe, who performs certain miscellaneous services, such as attending the arrival of railway-trains and steamboats to secure customers, looking after luggage, etc.
- noun A kind of messenger or light porter in general; one intrusted with commissions. In some European cities (as in London) a corps of commissionaires has been organized, drawn from the ranks of military pensioners.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One intrusted with a commission, now only a small commission, as an errand; esp., an attendant or subordinate employee in a public office, hotel, or the like.
- noun One of a corps of pensioned soldiers, as in London, employed as doorkeepers, messengers, etc.
- noun British a uniformed doorman.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun UK A
uniformed doorman . - noun law An undisclosed
agent under Europeancivil law .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a uniformed doorman
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It converts its German distributor to a stripped-risk intermediary called a commissionaire to limit what would otherwise be sales margins taxable in Germany.
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She not only gave me the required direction, but called a commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and — not my trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
Villette 2003
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Enter R. an important-looking personage with a long white beard, wearing a costume which might be, called a commissionaire's if it wasn't so like a harlequin's.
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-04-14 Various
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I was _en route_ all night, and in the morning, very weary, I went to a hotel, called a commissionaire, and bade him get my passport from the police, and have it _visee_, and secure me a passage on the boat to Leghorn.
Memoirs Charles Godfrey Leland 1863
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She not only gave me the required direction, but called a commissionaire, and bid him take charge of me, and -- _not_ my trunk, for that was gone to the custom-house.
Villette Charlotte Bront�� 1835
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A margate is a particular kind of commissionaire who sees you every day and is on cheerful Christian-name terms with you, then one day refuses to let you in because you've forgotten your identify card.
The Meaning of Liff Adams, Douglas, 1952- 1983
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Then came the charge of our "commissionaire" for his services.
Glances at Europe In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. Horace Greeley 1841
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'commissionaire' of the hotel -- I don't know what a 'commissionaire' is, but that is the man we went to -- and told him we wanted a guide.
The Innocents Abroad — Volume 02 Mark Twain 1872
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'commissionaire' of the hotel -- I don't know what a 'commissionaire' is, but that is the man we went to -- and told him we wanted a guide.
The Innocents Abroad Mark Twain 1872
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"commissionaire" had gone after our Passports, for which we paid first the charge of the Papal Police, which I think was about three francs; then for the _visé_ of our several Consuls, we Americans a dollar each, which (though but half what is charged by our Consuls at other Italian ports) is more than is charged by those of any other nation.
Glances at Europe In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. Horace Greeley 1841
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