What does "mandarin" mean?
A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
Mandarin
/ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/ adj, noun, slang
adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
- Grammar: mandarin is listed as adj, noun, slang.
- Nearest alternatives: academic, authority, beijing dialect, bookish.
- Useful contrasts: cantonese, colorless, commoner.
- Usage evidence: He has made great progress in speaking Mandarin.
How to use "mandarin"
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- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "mandarin" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
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Meaning check
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Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "mandarin" in a final draft.
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Before you rely on this definition
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
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Definitions
Noun
- 1 A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire. historical
"LIKE THE MANDARINS of old, the rulers of China live behind high walls. When they emerge, which they rarely do, they travel in cars with rear windows curtained like sedan chairs. They live in the Chung Nan Hai, a walled park adjacent to the Forbidden City from where ancient dynasties ruled the Celestial Empire."
- 2 Ellipsis of mandarin orange:; A small, sweet citrus fruit.
- 3 Standard Mandarin, an official language of China and Taiwan, and one of four official languages in Singapore; Putonghua, Guoyu or Huayu. uncountable
"[...]and though the ſame word hath one ſignification in the Mandorines Language, and a contrary in Japan and other places, yet knowing one Speech and their Character, you may Travel not only through the Empire of China, but the adjacent Kingdoms."
- 4 the dialect of Chinese spoken in Beijing and adopted as the official language for all of China wordnet
- 5 A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
Show 12 more definitions
- 6 Ellipsis of mandarin orange:; A tree of the species Citrus reticulata.
- 7 A branch of the Chinese languages, consisting of many dialects; Guanhua or Beifanghua. uncountable
""Two, three, four, five, south! Six, seven, eight, nine, north!" Strange as it may sound, this is the way the people on the Chinese mainland complain about the lack of clothes, food and other necessities. Absent from the phrases are "one" and "ten"—"i" and "shih" in Chinese Mandarin. The words for "clothes" and "food" sound alike. Also missing are "east" and "west." Their Chinese equivalents when put together as "tung-hsi," stand for "things," "objects" or "matters.""
- 8 a somewhat flat reddish-orange loose skinned citrus of China wordnet
- 9 A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles. derogatory, sometimes
"Its sting preserved to literature a fierce peculiar genius [Waugh] who, in the 40 years before his death last week at 62, achieved recognition as the grand old mandarin of modern British prose and as a satirist whose skill at sticking pens in people rates him a roomy cell in the murderers’ row (Swift, Pope, Wilde, Shaw) of English letters."
- 10 An orange colour.
- 11 a high public official of imperial China wordnet
- 12 Ellipsis of mandarin duck. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
- 13 any high government official or bureaucrat wordnet
- 14 A senior civil servant. British, informal
- 15 a member of an elite intellectual or cultural group wordnet
- 16 A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf. bobblehead.)
"He lay quietly in the hydropathic bed while his heart shuddered and his eyes focused at random on objects in the room, simulating a calm he could not feel. The walls of green jade, the nightlight in the porcelain mandarin whose head nodded interminably if you touched him, the multi-clock that radiated the time of three planets and six satelittes, the bed itself, a crystal pool flowing with carbonated glycerine at ninety-nine point nine Fahrenheit."
- 17 shrub or small tree having flattened globose fruit with very sweet aromatic pulp and thin yellow-orange to flame-orange rind that is loose and easily removed; native to southeastern Asia wordnet
Adjective
- 1 Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.
"A mandarin impassivity had descended over Smiley's face. The earlier emotion was quite gone."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
"He has made great progress in speaking Mandarin."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "mandarin"?
Common synonyms include: academic, authority, beijing dialect, bookish, brahmin, brainworker.
How do you use "mandarin" in a sentence?
He has made great progress in speaking Mandarin.
How do you pronounce "mandarin"?
Pronounced /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *men- Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-trom Proto-Indo-Iranian *mántras Sanskrit मन्त्र॑ (mántra) Proto-Indo-Iranian *-in- Sanskrit -इन् (-in) Sanskrit म॒न्त्रिन् (mantrín)bor. Malay menteribor. Portuguese mandarimbor. English mandarin From Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, and its source, Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, an agent suffix).
Etymology 2
From French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.
Etymology 3
Calque from Chinese 官話／官话 (Guānhuà, “spoken language of the mandarins”). An extension of mandarin (“bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire”) to the language used by the imperial court and sometimes by imperial officials elsewhere. As such, it was adopted as a synonym for Modern Standard Chinese in the 20th century. The term became ambiguous, however, as its use was extended to the various Northern dialects of Chinese.