commissioner

American  

[kuh-mish-uh-ner] / kəˈmɪʃ ə nər /

noun

• commissioners
  plural

1. a person commissioned to act officially; member of a commission.

2. a government official or representative in charge of a department or district.

   the police commissioner; the commissioner of a colony.

3. an official chosen by an athletic association to exercise broad administrative or judicial authority.

   the baseball commissioner.

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commissioner British  

/ kəˈmɪʃənə /

noun

1. a person authorized to perform certain tasks or endowed with certain powers

2. government

   1. any of several types of civil servant

   2. an ombudsman See also Health Service Commissioner Parliamentary Commissioner

3. a member of a commission

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• commissionership
  noun
• subcommissioner
  noun
• subcommissionership
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• commissioners
  plural

Etymology

Origin of commissioner

1400–50; late Middle English < Anglo-French. See commission, -er ²

Explanation

The noun commissioner refers to someone in charge of a formal group or organization, such as a police commissioner or a baseball commissioner. As you might guess, commissioner is related to commission, which describes a group that carries out a particular function. Commissioner can describe an official who directs or regulates a commission, or it can be that person's title. For example, if Theodore Young is the housing commissioner, in formal situations you’d refer to him as Commissioner Young.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

commissioner commissioners

South Africa's high commissioner to India, Anil Sooklal, was also pictured with the duo and he has since been recalled.

From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026

Larry Berg, the co-managing owner of LAFC, was chosen Monday to become the third commissioner in MLS history when Don Garber retires in December.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026

Tucker, the Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner, is a fifth-generation Texan who ties his campaign to Texas’ populist movement and focuses on issues that receive the most petition signatures on his website.

From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026

Greg Mullins, who served as commissioner of the New South Wales fire service from 2003 to 2017, said he believed crews in Europe were well aware of how to deal with blazes.

From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026

Wah-Ti-An-Kah said that he was not ashamed of his body, and after he and the delegation pressed their case, the commissioner agreed to end the ration policy.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

“No one will be seeing higher or lower premiums for their automobile policies based on this ruling,” said Sanchez, who noted several previous commissioners didn’t change the regulation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026

Trusty was one of two commissioners who voted last year to approve Paramount’s merger with another media company, Skydance.

From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026

But private money managers have been conjuring up new debt instruments faster than thinly stretched state insurance commissioners can rein them in, and the regulatory process sometimes resembles a game of whac-a-mole.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Police and crime commissioners will be abolished as part of plans to devolve powers to Norfolk and Suffolk and create a mayorship covering the two counties.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026

To undermine their effort, one of the district commissioners ordered the warden to install two gas stoves near the women’s cells and to hire six women to cook ham and bacon twenty-four hours a day.

From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling

Related Words

• administrator