cicerone

plural cicerones · plural ciceroni

1. A guide who accompanies visitors and sightseers to museums, galleries, etc., and explains matters of archaeological, antiquarian, historic or artistic interest.

   Ultimately their gazes all rested on his cicerone as most powerful member of the group.

   1987, Michael Brodsky, Xman, page 360

   3 more examples

   East, still doing the cicerone, pointed out all the remarkable characters to Tom as they passed[…]

   1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days, Part I, Chapter 7

   he was in the act of making his evening plans with the same smelly but nice cicerone in a café-au-lait suit whom he had hired already twice at the same Genoese hotel [...].

   1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 3

   “First,” advised their cicerone in the matter, Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa, “try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions.”

   2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 279

present singular third person cicerones · participle present ciceroning · participle past ciceroned · past ciceroned

1. ambitransitivearchaicTo show (somebody) the sights, acting as a tourist guide.

   1 more example

   Accordingly, as three o'clock struck, six dashing-looking light dragoons were seen slowly sauntering up the dining-hall, escorted by Webber, who, in full academic costume, was leisurely ciceroning his friends and expatiating upon the excellences of the very remarkable portraits which graced the walls.

   1841, Charles Lever, chapter 17, in Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon, volume 1, page 151