Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A person in charge of paying wages and salaries.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who is to pay, or who regularly pays; one from whom wages or remuneration is received.
- noun An officer in the army whose duty it is to pay the officers and men their wages, and who is intrusted with money for this purpose.
- noun An officer in the United States navy who has charge of money, provisions, clothing, and small stores, and is responsible for their safe-keeping and issue.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who pays; one who compensates, rewards, or requites; specifically, an officer or agent of a government, a corporation, or an employer, whose duty it is to pay salaries, wages, etc., and keep account of the same.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An official in charge of payments to employees, troops, etc.
- noun A person or body which demands loyalty or services in return for payment (especially as paid in advance).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person in charge of paying wages
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Their current paymaster is HRC, who can't afford the bills.
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Their current paymaster is HRC, who couldn’t afford the bills.
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Yet the details of this new "strategic" role for local authorities are yet to be revealed and, as Linnell points out: "Playing a strategic role will be much more difficult if the paymaster is the YPLA," especially as local authorities will still have statutory responsibility for the 16 - to 18-year-olds in their area.
Young People's Learning Agency takes over college funding 2010
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A draft on Don Pedro was readily cashed at Sierra Leone, notwithstanding the paymaster was a slaver and the jurisdiction that of St. George and his Cross.
Captain Canot or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver Theodore Canot
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They have no idea of the object of my inquiries, and indeed believe that their paymaster is the head of the secret police, or the agent of some powerful minister. '
At Agincourt 1867
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In great anger he sprang across the room, called the paymaster and exclaimed, "Accept my offer, or you are dismissed on the spot!"
The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals John Gibson Paton 1865
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In 1996, al-Qaida's "paymaster" and a top lieutenant for bin Laden walked into a U.S. embassy in Africa and spilled the beans on the terror group's activities - including that al-Qaida had purchased nuclear material in the Sudan.
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The raid also netted another big fish -- Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, a Saudi citizen believed to be the "paymaster" of the 9-11 plot.
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But Germany, traditionally the "paymaster" of Europe, naturally opposes such shenanigans -- and no longer suffers any cold-war shyness about saying so.
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's new book, In the Line of Fire, names Omar Sheikh, the alleged 9/11 'paymaster', as a possible asset for the British intelligence agency MI6.
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