The Collaborative International Dictionary
Commissary \Com"mis*sa*ry\, n.; pl. Commissaries. [LL. commissarius, fr. L. commissus, p. p. of committere to commit, intrust to. See Commit.]
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One to whom is committed some charge, duty, or office, by a superior power; a commissioner.
Great Destiny, the Commissary of God.
--Donne. (Eccl.) An officer of the bishop, who exercises ecclesiastical jurisdiction in parts of the diocese at a distance from the residence of the bishop.
--Ayliffe.-
(Mil.)
An officer having charge of a special service; as, the commissary of musters.
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An officer whose business is to provide food for a body of troops or a military post; -- officially called commissary of subsistence. [U. S.] Washington wrote to the President of Congress . . . urging the appointment of a commissary general, a quartermaster general, a commissary of musters, and a commissary of artillery. --W. Irving Commissary general, an officer in charge of some special department of army service; as:
The officer in charge of the commissariat and transport department, or of the ordnance store department. [Eng.]
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The commissary general of subsistence. [U. S.]
Commissary general of subsistence (Mil. U. S.), the head of the subsistence department, who has charge of the purchase and issue of provisions for the army.
Usage examples of "commissary general".
Winder, Commissary General of Prisoners, Baltimorean renegade and the malign genius to whose account should be charged the deaths of more gallant men than all the inquisitors of the world ever slew by the less dreadful rack and wheel.
Legend has it that the shell went right through a window and landed at the dinner table where some British officers, including the British commissary general, had just sat down to dine.
John was now the commissary general, having replaced the incompetent Northrop two months before.
Remorseless and cruel as his conduct of the office of Provost Marshal General was, it gave little hint of the extent to which he would go in that of Commissary General of Prisoners.
And after the adjutant comes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken, and the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a courier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does not admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander in chief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically opposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander in chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his .
He had been the city of Florence's Commissary General of Fortifications.