pa|tron

pa|tron¹ «PAY truhn», noun, adjective.

–n.

1. a person who buys regularly at a given store or goes regularly to a certain hotel or restaurant: »

The enormous demand for military boots was rendering it…difficult for him to give to old patrons that…attention which he wold desire to give (Arnold Bennett).

2. a person who gives his approval and support to some person, art, cause, or undertaking: »

a patron of artists; a renowned patron of learning (Jonathan Swift). Books…ought to have no patrons but truth and reason (Francis Bacon).

SYNONYM(S): sponsor, benefactor.

3. a guardian saint; patron saint: »

St. Crispin, the patron of shoemakers.

4. (in ancient Rome) an influential man who took certain persons under his protection, or a master who had freed a slave but retained some claims upon him.

5. a person who holds the right to present a clergyman to a benefice.

6. Obsolete. a founder of a religious order.

–adj.

guarding; protecting: »

a patron saint.

╂[< Old French patroun, learned borrowing from Latin patrōnus patron advocate, protector; person to be respected < pater, patris father. See etym. of doublets padrone (Cf. ↑padrone), patroon¹ (Cf. ↑patroon), pattern. (Cf. ↑pattern)]

pa|tron² «pa trn», noun.

French. a proprietor.