commissionary

English

Etymology

From commission +‎ -ary.

Adjective

commissionary (not comparable)

1. Of, relating to, or conferring a commission.
2. Conferred by a commission or warrant.
   • 1649, Joseph Hall, Resolutions and Decisions of Diverse Practical Cases of Conscience:

     Delegate or commissionary authority.

Synonyms

• commissional

Noun

commissionary (plural commissionaries)

1. a commission, an administrative board
   • 1602, “The First Part, Entreating what Counsell a Prince should use”, in Simon Patericke, transl., A Discourse upon the Meanes of VVel Governing and Maintainig in Good Peace, a Kingdome, or Other Principalitie. […], London: […] Adam Islip, translation of [Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner et maintenir en bonne paix un royaume ou autre principauté] by [Innocent Gentillet], maxime 2, page 62:

     After the death of king Philip; Charles Counte de Valois, his brother, begun criminally to purſue M. Enguerrant before certaine commiſſionaries of the ſaid court, delegated for that purpoſe.

   • 1982, Makhan Jha, Civilizational Regions of Mithila & Mahakoshal, Capital Publishing House, page 168:

     Besides these re-organisations at the districts level, the Tirhut district of the last century has been virtually divided into three commissionaries of North Bihar within one hundred year viz. the Tirhut Commissionary, comprising the districts of Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Vaisali, Sonepur, etc.

   • 1999, Vincent J.H. Houben, “Before departure: Coolie labour recruitment in Java, 1900-1942”, in Coolie Labour in Colonial Indonesia: A Study of Labour Relations in the Outer Islands, c. 1900–1940, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, →ISBN, page 33:

     The observance of this multitude of rules was the task of officials of the Labour Inspectorate, namely the so-called recruitment commissionaries (wervingscommissarissen). […] In 1910 the commissionaries were given the authority to detect and report penal offences.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “commissionary”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)