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:
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
The little padrone was the passionate 18th's new-style ward boss and idol.
From Time Magazine Archive
Best shots : Miss Daniels in her metal dress; a Mexican padrone respect fully kissing a moneyed young man be cause he takes him to be a safecracker.
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
The padrone knew better than to trust his longest-sworded clients for even so small a matter as a brown paolo.
From The Heart of Denise and Other Tales by S. (Sidney) Levett-Yeats
There is also a Boston Italian Society, organized in 1902, to protect newcomers from sharpers, thieves, and fraudulent persons; also from the frauds of bankers and padrones.
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
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
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
Commissioner Watchorn had word from his special investigators abroad that the men had been collected in the Balkan States to work for padrones in this country.
From Aliens or Americans? by Howard B. (Howard Benjamin) Grose
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
When the provveditore was present at solemn functions a bench was placed for him and the "padroni," as well as for the authorities of the Castelli and the colonel of the district.
From The Shores of the Adriatic The Austrian Side, The Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia by F. Hamilton (Frederick Hamilton) Jackson
"Can you tell me whether the padroni will go out to-day in the boat?"
From The Children of the King by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford
"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.
