intendant

Originally and usually from French intendant, but translating Spanish or Chinese equivalents in some contexts.

intendant (plural intendants)

1. (UK) The administrator of an opera house or theater.
2. (dated) One who has the charge, direction, or management of some public business; a superintendent.

   an intendant of finance

   • 1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman:

     By-and-by, she wandered away to an unnecessary revelation of her master's whereabouts: gone to help in the search for his landlord, the Sieur de Poissy, who lived at the château just above, and who had not returned from his chase the day before; so the intendant imagined he might have met with some accident, and had summoned the neighbours to beat the forest and the hill-side.

3. A governor in various specific contexts, including certain South American countries, and historically in the kingdoms of Spain, Portugal, and France, and in imperial China.

• (governor): governor; see also circuit intendant (Chinese)

intendant (comparative more intendant, superlative most intendant)

1. (obsolete) Attentive.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃/

intendant m (plural intendants)

1. intendant, administrator
2. quartermaster

• “intendant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

intendant

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of intendō

intendant m (plural intendanți)

1. alternative form of intendent