bosses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of boss.

   Several department bosses signed off on the budget cuts.

   The two bosses rarely agreed on anything.

   Note

   The -es plural that every sense of boss shares, added because the stem ends in a hissing s. It covers office supervisors, company heads, a district's party bosses, and the tough end-of-level enemies a player must beat to progress. The same spelling also serves as the verb for ordering people around. In "the bosses meet" it is a noun, and in "she bosses them" it is a verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of boss.

   The supervisor bosses the kitchen staff through every shift.

   Whenever she takes charge, she bosses everyone in sight.

   Note

   A transitive form: whoever bosses always bosses somebody or something, as in "she bosses the staff." Its usual meaning is telling people what to do, often repeatedly, which gives it a faint note of complaint rather than neutral management. A rarer craft meaning shares the spelling: to boss a surface is to decorate it with raised bosses, that is, to emboss it.

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