overboss

plural overbosses

1. A boss of underbosses in a criminal organization.

   But Buscetta neglected to inform his overboss about his extracurricular activity in crime.

   1991, William Balsamo, George Carpozi, Crime Incorporated Or Under the Clock, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Five years later Trillot had proven his worth to a local Tenloss syndicate, and two years after that he resigned from Cestus Cybernetics to work directly for the overboss himself.

   2004, Steven Barnes, The Hive, page 89

   His overboss was constantly on his back checking, making sure the money was coming in. Costa owed his overboss €50,000, the price for protection and safe transit to the UK.

   2017, Alastair Macleod, Illegal, →ISBN

present singular third person overbosses · participle present overbossing · participle past overbossed · past overbossed

1. To micromanage.

   Either they‟re overbossed or underbossed. Either the father tells them when to breathe, or he ignores them.

   2006, Mary Edwards Wertsch, Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Those who refuse to take responsibility argue that what ails people is that they are, or have been, overbossed, and not left enough on their own to develop their natural good nature.

   1953, Rhoda Kellogg, Babies need fathers, too, page 191

   Both nursing and nonnursing students viewed nurses as respected and hardworking; however, more of the nonnursing than nursing students considered nurses to be overbossed and to have little chance for advancement or independent thinking.

   1975, Helen S. Astin, Allison Parelman, Anne E. Fisher, Sex Roles: A Research Bibliography, page 252