honcho

noun
/ˈhɑn.t͡ʃoʊ/US/ˈhɒn.tʃəʊ/UK

Etymology

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.

  1. derived from 班長

Definitions

  1. Boss, leader.

    • Says they had no choice. Says the NVA killed the old honcho when he said no. Now he says all the rice is theirs.
    • Mostly he wrote what the higher honchos in the newsroom referred to, often condescendingly, as “offbeat” stories.
  2. To lead or manage.

    • I had never honchoed that many people so even something as simple as ordering them to knead dough or fondant became an important decision.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for honcho. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA