commissary

American  

[kom-uh-ser-ee] / ˈkɒm əˌsɛr i /

noun

• commissaries
  plural

1. a store that sells food and supplies to the personnel or workers in a military post, mining camp, lumber camp, or the like.

2. a dining room or cafeteria, especially one in a motion-picture studio.

3. a person to whom some responsibility or role is delegated by a superior power; a deputy.

4. (in France) a police official, usually just below the police chief in rank.

5. commissar.

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commissary British  

/ ˈkɒmɪsərɪ /

noun

1. a shop supplying food or equipment, as in a military camp

2. army an officer responsible for supplies and food

3. a snack bar or restaurant in a film studio

4. a representative or deputy, esp an official representative of a bishop

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• commissaryship
  noun
• subcommissary
  noun
• commissarial
  adjective
• subcommissarial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• commissaries
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of commissary

1350–1400; Middle English commissarie (< Anglo-French ) < Medieval Latin commissārius, equivalent to Latin commiss ( us ) (past participle of committere to commit ) + -ārius -ary

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Explanation

A commissary is a food and supply store for employees. On military bases, soldiers and their families shop in a commissary. The original commissaries were the military ones, from an earlier meaning of the word, "military official in charge of food supplies and transport." Today, many workplaces have commissaries where employees can buy prepared food, provisions, and sometimes equipment. Some factory laborers, miners, incarcerated people, and office workers shop at commissaries. And since Hollywood movie studios first opened in the early 20th century, they operated cafeterias on their lots, known as commissaries, for their employees.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

commissary commissaries

In 2010, Lucas formally proposed a museum on the former commissary site at San Francisco’s Crissy Field, but the Presidio Trust opened the location to competing proposals and ultimately rejected all three finalists.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2026

Men would also scroll YouTube videos, partake in online sports betting and convince women on the outside to date them, sometimes seemingly to get those women to wire money into their commissary accounts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

Its 2,600 Los Angeles employees have access to a free commissary and an endless supply of cereal, packaged snacks and other prepared fare at small food stations scattered throughout the sprawling campus on Olympic Boulevard.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026

According to contemporaneous accounts, German prisoners of war in U.S. camps were sometimes offered Cokes at the commissary.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026

He’s never eaten in a universal commissary with choices from udon to bucatini, Irish stew to pepián.

From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera

Public grocery stores already exist in the form of commissaries on military bases.

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 29, 2025

Instead, they run their business from commissaries or their home kitchen, making them known as cottage bakers.

From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2025

Pennsylvania’s contract for $50 million with GTL includes a 22.5 percent kickback from the sale of music, e-messaging, games, e-books, and deposits into people’s prison bank accounts—called commissaries.

From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2024

Since launching in Pico-Union, CloudKitchens has expanded rapidly, opening ghost-kitchen commissaries in Koreatown, Long Beach, Anaheim and downtown.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2020

They stated, furthermore, that they were not being paid in real money but in scrip, which was good only to buy Virginia ham in the company commissaries.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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