Commissionaire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A uniformed attendant stationed at the entrance of a hotel, theatre or office building to greet visitors and open doors
2. A doorman dressed in a formal uniform who assists guests and visitors at the entrance of a large building
3. A uniformed man employed to stand at the door of a hotel or theatre, helping patrons and handling everyday entrance duties

Etymology: A commissionaire, in the older sense, was anyone entrusted with a commission, a person given a task or errand to carry out on another's behalf. The word arrived in English from French "commissionaire," which itself came from Latin "commissio," a noun meaning a joining, a committing or an entrusting. The same Latin root gave English "commission," and the two words are closely related, so the relationship runs deep in the family tree. The sense of a uniformed doorman developed later, from the idea of a man who takes on errands and small jobs for whoever employs him. Hotels and theatres in the nineteenth century used such men to call cabs, carry messages and keep order at the entrance, and the title came to describe that role. The word shares a doublet relationship with "commissioner," meaning that both English words descend from the same Latin source but reached the language by different routes, one through French and one by another path.

Synonyms: doorman, porter, concierge