''patronage'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708194133-00-⌔

patronage - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

patronage (countable and uncountable, plural patronages)

• The act of providing approval and support; backing; championship.
  • ✤ His vigorous patronage of the conservatives got him in trouble with progressives.
• Customers collectively; clientele; business.
  • ✤ Hyponym: ridership
  • ✤ The restaurant had an upper-class patronage.
  • ✤ The improved service to and from Taunton is fully justified by the passenger patronage to and from this town, which is a railhead for a large surrounding area.¹
  • ✤ In addition to employment in the area, once you factor in the patronage of people visiting the various sites, it’s not difficult to see why it’s being redeveloped. The current station building is tiny in comparison to other stations with a similar patronage.²
• The act or state of being a customer of some business.
  • ✤ The restaurant had “Thank you for your patronage!” printed on its take-out bags.
• A communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient; condescension; disdain.
• (politics) Granting favours or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support.
  • ✤ * Patronage, nepotism, cronyism, abuse of power, and criminal activity flourish, sometimes for decades, in numerous town halls, police stations, and special-purpose government agencies in the suburbs.*³
• Guardianship, as of a saint; tutelary care.
  • ✤ Each of the Arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a Muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.⁴
• The right of nomination to political office.
• (UK, law) The right of presentation to church or ecclesiastical benefice; advowson.
  • ✤ *Advowson is the right of presentation to a church, or ecclesiastical benefice. Advowson, advocatio, signifies the taking into protection; and therefore is synonymous with patronage *⁵
• Patronising speech or behaviour.
  • ✤ The housekeeper, a very decorative brunette of thirty-five with a pseudo-English accent, greeted him with a mixture of grateful effusion and condescending patronage.⁶

Verb

patronage (third-person singular simple present patronages, present participle patronaging, simple past and past participle patronaged)

• (transitive) To support by being a patron of.
  • ✤ Mingdi continued the policy of his father who had patronaged Confucian learning.⁷
  • ✤ Table 5.4 reveals the role of criminal gangs’ patron under each crime category. From this, we can understand that 74 percent of the mercenaries are patronaged and supported by the politicians either of the ruling or opposition party.⁸
  • ✤ To summarize: a person with a party political background is thus defined as ‘a person that has served in (a) […] and/or (b) a non-elective position inside the party administration of patronaged position in another organisation, i.e. the political functionary ’.⁹
• (transitive) To be a regular customer or client of; to patronize
  • ✤ Synonyms: support, keep going
  • ✤ This house is largely patronaged by the professors and students of many of the Educational Institutions of New England and the Middle States; and all perons visiting New York, either for business or pleasure, will find this an excellent place at which to stop.¹⁰
  • ✤ Mr. F. A. Welch, of the Oak View Poultry Farm, Salem, starts an add with us this issue. […] Our readers will be treated well, if they patronage Mr. Welch.¹¹
  • ✤ Most public establishments catered to Blacks, and Whites actively patronaged some black-owned businesses (Martin 1982, 6, 9–11; Slingsby 1980, 31–32).¹²

Etymology

From Middle English patronage, from Old French patronage (modern French patronage). Equivalent to patron +‎ -age. Piecewise doublet of patternage.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈpeɪtɹənɪd͡ʒ/, (also in Commonwealth, Ireland, UK)/ˈpætɹənɪd͡ʒ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

1. 1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, pages 590–591: ↩

2. 2021 July 28, Peter Plisner, “The race to the Games has begun”, in RAIL, number 936, page 54: ↩

3. 2015, Thomas J. Gradel, Dick Simpson, Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 117: ↩

4. 1864, Eliza Farnham, Woman and Her Era: ↩

5. 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England,, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC: ↩

6. 1946, William Hatfield, Buffalo Jim, Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege, page 70: ↩

7. 2003, Hubert Michael Seiwert, Popular Religious Movements and Heterodox Sects in Chinese History ‎${}^{[1]}$, BRILL, →ISBN, page 62: ↩

8. 2004, C.K. Gandhirajan, Organized Crime ‎${}^{[2]}$, APH Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 147: ↩

9. 2007, Stefaan Fiers, Ineke Secker, “6, A Career through the Party”, in Maurizio Cotta, Heinrich Best, editors, Democratic Representation in Europe ‎${}^{[3]}$, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 138: ↩

10. c. 1880, The Primary Teacher ‎${}^{[4]}$, volume 3, New-England Publishing Company, page 63: ↩

11. 1902 May, Oregon Poultry Journal ‎${}^{[5]}$, page 27: ↩

12. 2002, Kevin Fox Gotham, Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development ‎${}^{[6]}$, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 28: ↩