patronize

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Within whatever store or restaraunt they would patronize, they would gravitate toward the least expensive option.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. transitive verb To act as a patron to; support or sponsor.
  2. transitive verb To go to as a customer, especially on a regular basis.
  3. transitive verb To treat in a condescending manner.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

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Examples (50)

  • I met them in the cheap brothels I began to patronize, and the wretched saloons called doggeries, where I warmed my belly against the night air with dime shots of bad whiskey. —  FSF,March2008
  • The communications studies and political-science major stressed that he sees the guerrilla-queer-bar group as a good thing for any business it chooses to patronize, and he doesn't anticipate any problems. —  The Daily Iowan - Online Edition
  • Save receipts from any Manitou Springs businesses you patronize, then present them at the Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce, 354 —  Gazette.com :
  • If you do decide to write in ways that seem to generalize, patronize, insult, or demonize a whole group of people then take responsibility for your words and realize that people will be offended and upset. —  Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture
  • Would you have me publicly patronize, associate with, caress the mantua-maker_, in my own land, before my own kin? —  Fairy Fingers A Novel
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

patronize:   patronizing ·  patronized
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from French patroniser; be a patron; as patron + -ize.
 

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/ˈpeɪtrənaɪz/
by American Heritage

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