commissariat

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A department of an army in charge of providing food and other supplies for the troops.
• noun A food supply.
• noun A major government department in the Soviet Union until 1946.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun That department of an army the duties of which consist in supplying transport, provisions, forage, camp equipage, etc., to the troops; also, the body of officers in that department.
• noun The office or employment of a commissary.
• noun In Scots law, the jurisdiction of a commissary; the district of country over which the authority or jurisdiction of a commissary extends. See extract.
• Pertaining to or concerned in furnishing supplies: as, the commissariat department; commissariat arrangements.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The organized system by which armies and military posts are supplied with food and daily necessaries.
• noun The body of officers charged with such service.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A supply of food.
• noun The department of an army that supplies provisions for the troops.
• noun dated A department of the government of the Soviet Union in the early period of its existence.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a stock or supply of foods