padrone
Americannoun
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padrones,
plural
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padroni
plural
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a master; boss.
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an employer, especially of immigrant laborers, who provides communal housing and eating arrangements, controls the allocation of pay, etc., in a manner that exploits the workers.
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an innkeeper.
noun
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the owner or proprietor of an inn, esp in Italy
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an employer who completely controls his workers, esp a man who exploits Italian immigrants in the US
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of padrone
From Italian, dating back to 1660–70; see origin at patron
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The little padrone was the passionate 18th's new-style ward boss and idol.
From Time Magazine Archive
The bank should satisfy the critical eye of its padrone.
From Time Magazine Archive
Phil, the Fiddler is a memorial to a successful crusade that Alger led against the padrone system, by which hundreds of little street musicians, brought to Manhattan from Italy, were kept as virtual slaves.
From Time Magazine Archive
By this time the Old Man has been transmogrified into a wise and mellow padrone, and the story shifts a generation.
From Time Magazine Archive
There was one long, narrow table—the padrone carved himself at a smaller one, and talked to us occasionally.
From Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Life January-May, 1880; February-April, 1904 by Mary Alsop King Waddington
He thought of last year's grape-harvest ruined by a thunderstorm, the frightful poverty of the peasants under the thumb of the padrones.
From Dreamers of the Ghetto by Israel Zangwill
The steamship companies had to bear the expense of taking them back, but the padrones have not suffered any penalty, and will go on with their unlawful work.
From Aliens or Americans? by Howard B. (Howard Benjamin) Grose
He was basking on the topmost branches now, stretched out in the sunshine of social success, swaying to every movement made by his padrones.
From A Gentleman's Gentleman 1909 by Francis Hopkinson Smith
One of the padrones intercepted these notifications and sold them to the men for five dollars apiece, making also the usual bargain for a share of their wages.
From Democracy and Social Ethics by Jane Addams
The importation of contract laborers, usually under the direction of padrones, from Greece, Italy, and Austria-Hungary.
From Aliens or Americans? by Howard B. (Howard Benjamin) Grose
As we pass with the padrona of the hotel, who is a Bavarian, we stop to speak to our own padroni, the Di Paoli.
From Twilight in Italy by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
Since the alien contract-labor law does not apply to immigrants from Hawaii, a padroni system has sprung up for importing Japanese from that island.
From Races and Immigrants in America by John R. (John Rogers) Commons
A determined warfare was declared against the Italian padroni, who thrive upon the toil of the little unfortunates to whom they pretend to teach music, and whom they utilize as peddlers and chimney-sweepers.
From The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884 by Various
"You have a beautiful pair of padroni, you and your brother," observed Nennè, making a hideous face over the boat's side.
From The Children of the King by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
Then the padroni will have eaten and the rocks will be covered with crabs, and the moon will not be yet risen.
From The Children of the King by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
