Bureaucrat
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An official who is part of a bureaucracy.
"Coristine, who had signed onto the telemeeting using a non-government email address, gave the bureaucrats swift marching orders, telling them he needed access to the federal department’s contract and payment systems before reportedly making them justify their jobs at the $1 billion-budget administration."
- 2 an official of a bureaucracy wordnet
- 3 A user on a wiki with the right to change user access levels.
"One of three major processes is generally used: a bureaucrat review, a broader community review, or an approvals group review. As only local bureaucrats or Wikimedia stewards can grant the bot flag necessary to operate an authorized bot, the simplest method is to appeal directly to these individuals."
Example
More examples"Each bureaucrat has their own idiosyncrasies as to what papers they will require from you. To be safe, bring all the papers you can, and then get the ones that you can't. Even then, you will be at their whim."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥ Proto-Hellenic *pāwər Ancient Greek πῦρ (pûr) Proto-Indo-European *-rós Ancient Greek -ρός (-rós) Ancient Greek πῠρρός (pŭrrhós)bor. Latin burrus Latin burra Old French *bure Proto-Indo-European *-lós Proto-Italic *-elos Latin -ulus Latin -ellus Old French -el Old French burel French bureau Proto-Indo-European *kret- Ancient Greek κρᾰ́τος (krắtos) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) Ancient Greek -κρᾰτῐ́ᾱ (-krătĭ́ā)lbor. French -cratie French bureaucratie French bureaucratebor. English bureaucrat From French bureaucrate, equivalent to bureau + -crat.
Related phrases
More for "bureaucrat"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.