Mandarinate
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The status of holding a position as a mandarin. obsolete
- 2 The collective body of mandarins.
"As higher education, claiming more and more years of one’s life, widens the space between those who possess it and those who do not, and as the enlightenment of the public wanes relatively to the superior enlightenment of the learned castes and professions, the mandarinate will infallibly draw to itself a greater and greater share of social power."
- 3 A political form of rule by mandarins.
- 4 A type of government marked by excessive bureaucracy and Byzantine regulations. figuratively
"Far from being a model of democracy, the EU is associated with an arrogant, out-of-touch mandarinate that issues rules and edicts with paternalistic and highhanded disregard for ordinary citizens."
Example
More examples"As higher education, claiming more and more years of one’s life, widens the space between those who possess it and those who do not, and as the enlightenment of the public wanes relatively to the superior enlightenment of the learned castes and professions, the mandarinate will infallibly draw to itself a greater and greater share of social power."
Etymology
From French mandarinat, corresponding to mandarin + -ate (forms nouns denoting rank or office, a body of people performing it, the concrete charge of it).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.