Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An administrative official serving a French, Spanish, or Portuguese monarch.
  • noun A district administrator in some countries of Latin America.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who has the oversight, direction, or management of some public business; a superintendent; a manager: used as a title of many public officers in France and other European countries: as, an intendant of marine; an intendant of finance.
  • noun Specifically— In Canadian law, the second officer in Canada under the French rule, having civil and maritime jurisdiction.
  • noun In Mexican law, the chief officer of the treasury or of the district; a high functionary having administrative and some judicial power: in this use also written, as Spanish, intendente.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Attentive.
  • noun One who has the charge, direction, or management of some public business; a superintendent

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An administrator in certain countries in Latin America
  • noun historical An administrator serving the king or queen in France, Spain or Portugal.
  • adjective obsolete attentive

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Old French, administrator, from Latin intendēns, intendent-, present participle of intendere, to intend; see intend.]

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Examples

  • In this policy the intendant was the royal man-of-all-work.

    The Seigneurs of Old Canada : A Chronicle of New World Feudalism William Bennett Munro 1916

  • The nominal head, called the intendant, was a high military officer who had a sufficient detail of majors, captains and lower officers to assist him in maintaining discipline.

    The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller Calvin Thomas 1886

  • We had a quick look around and again talked with the "intendant",

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2009

  • He was a survival of the old feudal government, superseded by the centralized monarchy of which the intendant was the representative. [

    The Eve of the French Revolution 1869

  • In what can an intendant, that is to say my subordinate, my clerk, give me umbrage or injure me, even if he is Monsieur Colbert? "

    The Vicomte De Bragelonne Alexandre Dumas p��re 1836

  • (Letter of the "intendant" Foucault): "It is an illusion, which cannot proceed from anything but blind preoccupation, that of making any distinction between obligations of conscience and the obedience which is due to the King."] [Footnote 2315: "The Ancient Régime," p. 9 and following pages.

    The Modern Regime, Volume 1 Hippolyte Taine 1860

  • Bigot, François 1703–78, notoriously corrupt royal intendant of New France, 1748–59

    George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011

  • Mr. Flimm left in 2010, leaving Mr. Hinterhäuser as intendant and Thomas Oberender in charge of theater events until the current season ends.

    Salzburg's Summer of Shadows and Shakespeare Paul Levy 2011

  • Much of the money the government sent to Canada for royal service did end up in the pockets of highly placed thieves, and the worst malefactor was the intendant, François Bigot, whose job it was to prevent peculations, not to commit them.

    George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011

  • Much of the money the government sent to Canada for royal service did end up in the pockets of highly placed thieves, and the worst malefactor was the intendant, François Bigot, whose job it was to prevent peculations, not to commit them.

    George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011

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