Definition of "officer"

Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Many of our journals are officered by Irish gentlemen, and their gallant brigade does the penning among us, as their ancestors used to transact the fighting in Europe; and engage under many a flag, to be good friends when the battle is over.

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 31, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

The regular battalions of the regiment, though officered mainly by Anglo-Welshmen of county families, did not normally contain more than about one Welshman in fifty in the ranks.

1929, Robert Graves, chapter 10, in Good-Bye to All That‎, London: Jonathan Cape, page 115

[A]t least a quarter of those who fought and died in the Great War were prosperous with spacious homes, and to this class belonged nearly all who had ordered and officered the carnage.

1992, Alasdair Gray, Poor Things, Bloomsbury, published 2002, page 306