释义 |
commis In 6 Sc. -mess. [a. F. commis deputy, clerk, subst. use of commis, pa. pple. of commettre to commit, appoint, employ:—L. commissus, f. committĕre. Commis is therefore one who is specially employed or commissioned.] †1. A deputy, delegate, clerk; used chiefly of foreign officials. Obs.
1573in T. Thomson Inventories (1815) 187 (Jam.), I send to Servais wife and to his commess the pasmentar in the abbay, and causit thame graith me ane chalmer. 1697D. Jones Secr. Hist. Whitehall i. 1 Interpreter for the English Affairs to the Principal Commis or Clark of the Dispatches. 1779Ld. Pembroke Sp. in Ann. Reg. (1780) 129/1 This clerk in office, this commis contrary to all military establishments..was now a Lieutenant Colonel. 2. (ˈkɒmɪ.) An under-waiter or chef's assistant. Also attrib.
1930A. Bennett Imp. Palace xiv. 83 English waiters..don't care how they look... I mean the commis, of course, the youths in the long aprons. 1954A. Lee Round Many a Bend xiii. 110 He was a commis at Harrogate. 1962Listener 1 Feb. 234/2 The young commis chef who was attendant upon the master. 1963Ibid. 3 Oct. 520/3 Five-pound-a-week commis waiter. 3. commis-voyageur (‖ kɔmi vwajaʒœr), a commercial traveller.
1845R. Ford Handbk. Spain i. 206/2 The company is often composed of French and German commis voyageurs, who do not travel in the truth or soap lines. 1908T. E. Lawrence Lett. (1938) 58 I'm degenerating into a commis-voyageur. 1939A. Thirkell Brandons vii. 183 Le Capet, whose fourth mistress had just abandoned him for an elderly commis voyageur. |