bureaucrat
noun
Did you know?
In French, a bureau is a desk, so bureaucracy means basically "government by people at desks". Despite the bad-mouthing they often get, partly because they usually have to stick so close to the rules, bureaucrats do almost all the day-to-day work that keeps a government running. The idea of a bureaucracy is to split up the complicated task of governing a large country into smaller jobs that can be handled by specialists. Bureaucratic government is nothing new; the Roman empire had an enormous and complex bureaucracy, with the bureaucrats at lower levels reporting to bureaucrats above them, and so on up to the emperor himself.
Examples of bureaucrat in a Sentence
Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald, 13 May 2025
The former sees the latter as a pro-European traitor and а success symbol born of the imperial decline that Soviet-era bureaucrats have yet to accept.
—Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 12 May 2025
Lawyers would be stripped of their independence, serve those in power rather than society at large, and function as bureaucrats, not strategists.
—Mark A. Cohen, Forbes.com, 12 May 2025
Sun Sentinel Showing Biden bureaucrats how Florida does it | Opinion
Venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar writes that last-minute regulations passed by the Biden administration hamstrung businesses with unnecessary regulations that President Trump is working to undo.
—South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, 5 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Bureaucrat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucrat. Accessed 18 May. 2025.
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bureaucrat
noun
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