publican.
The landlord (manager or owner) of a public house (“a bar or tavern, often also selling food and sometimes lodging; a pub”).
Meaning & usage
The landlord (manager or owner) of a public house (“a bar or tavern, often also selling food and sometimes lodging; a pub”).
The manager or owner of a hotel.
Where this word comes from
Probably from public house (“(Britain) bar or tavern, often also selling food and sometimes lodging, pub”) or public (“open to all members of a community”) + -an (suffix forming agent nouns), apparently originally used humorously.
A tax collector, especially one working in Judea and Galilee during New Testament times (1st century C.E.) who was generally regarded as sinful for extorting more tax than was due, and as a traitor for serving the Roman Empire.
Any person who collects customs duties, taxes, tolls, or other forms of public revenue.
One regarded as extorting money from others by charging high prices.
A person excommunicated from the church; an excommunicant or excommunicate; also, a person who does not follow a Christian religion; a heathen, a pagan.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English publican [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman publican, pupplican, Middle French publicain, and Old French publican, publicain, pupplican (“tax collector”) (modern French publicain), and from their etymon Latin pūblicānus (“tax collector”), from pūblicum (“state revenue”) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’, usually indicating relationships of origin, position, or possession). Pūblicum is a noun use of the neuter form of pūblicus (“of or belonging to the people, state, or community; general, public”), ultimately from Proto-Italic *poplos (“army”). Sense 3.2 (“person excommunicated from the church; person who does not follow a Christian religion”) refers to Matthew 18:17 of the Bible: see the King James Version quotation under sense 1. Cognates * Catalan publicà * Italian pubblicano * Middle Dutch publicaen, puppilicaen, pupplicaen (modern Dutch publicaan (obsolete), publikaan) * Middle High German publicān, publicāne (early modern German Publican). * Middle Low German pūblicān * Old Occitan publican, puplican * Portuguese publicano * Spanish publicano
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.