patron

noun

1. 1

   One who protects or supports; a defender or advocate.

   patron of my life and liberty

   the patron of true holiness

   Let him who works the client wrong beware the patron’s ire!

2. 2

   One who protects or supports; a defender or advocate. A guardian or intercessor; synonym of patron saint.

   St. Joseph is the patron of many different places.

3. 3

   An influential, wealthy person who supported an artist, craftsman, a scholar or a noble.

4. 4

   A customer, as of a certain store or restaurant.

   This car park is for patrons only.

   In our trial of the AOT, a transect was used to collect data about the languages being spoken by patrons of the NIE cafeteria during lunchtimes.

5. 5

   historicalA protector of a dependent, especially a master who had freed a slave but still retained some paternal rights.

6. 6

   One who has gift and disposition of a benefice.

7. 7

   A padrone.

8. 8

   historicalA property owner, a landlord, a master. (Compare patroon.)

   Half-a-dozen little boys carried it to the inn, where I had to explain to the patron, in my best Spanish, that we wanted a carriage to go to the baths, seven leagues off.

   [...] would obtain permission from the West India Company to settle in certain areas in the New World and cultivate the land. Sometimes absentee patrons would give the colony to a group of interested persons and the patrons would finance ...

verb

1. 1

   obsoleteTo be a patron of; to patronize; to favour.

   a good cause needs not to be patroned by passion

2. 2

   obsoleteTo treat as a patron.

Forms

plural

patrons

past tense

patroned

past participle

patroned

present participle

patroning

third person singular

patrons