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
Rob Salkowitz, Forbes, 13 Dec. 2024
As the controversial New York bureaucrat and city planner, Fiennes strode and charged across a stage dominated by a map of the city, his body a metaphor for Moses’s ability to plow through forests and hills and villages and neighborhoods.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 6 Dec. 2024
The choices of Hegseth and Phelan indicate the incoming president wants disruptors — not long-time bureaucrats — to shake up the military services and the Pentagon as a whole.
—Ellen Mitchell, The Hill, 3 Dec. 2024
Every day government bureaucrats at the agency carry out an array of services.
—Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY, 8 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Bureaucrat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucrat. Accessed 21 Dec. 2024.
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bureaucrat
noun
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