padrone
Americannoun
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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
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.
The little padrone was the passionate 18th's new-style ward boss and idol.
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
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
A. In a marriage there is always a padrone, a master, and it is not necessarily the man.
From Time Magazine Archive
We pushed out into the current, and drifted slowly down under the bridges, without oars the padrone quietly smoking his pipe at the helm.
From Pencillings by the Way Written During Some Years of Residence and Travel in Europe by Willis, N. Parker
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.
