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honcho

UK/ˈhɒn.tʃəʊ/ US/ˈhɑn.t͡ʃoʊ/ rare informal us

noun

1.

a person who exercises control over workers

  • “if you want to leave early you have to ask the foreman”
Synonyms

Origin

From Japanese 班(はん)長(ちょう) (hanchō, “squad leader”), from 19th c. Mandarin 班長 /班长 (bānzhǎng, “team leader”). Probably entered English during World War II: many apocryphal stories describe American soldiers hearing Japanese prisoners-of-war refer to their lieutenants as hanchō.

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.