Definition of "commissariat"

commissariat

noun
plural commissariats
1. A supply of food.
  Quotations
  We gave such dinner-parties as our commissariat allowed; the menu was simplicity itself - " blanket " for every course, cunningly disguised as soup, entree, and, I was going to say, joint.
  1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 79
2. The department of an army that supplies provisions for the troops.
3. (historical) A department of the government of the Soviet Union in the early period of its existence.
4. A territorial and governmental unit of Colombia at some points in its history.