Officialese

//ə.fɪ.ʃəˈliːz// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The typical language of officials or official documents; legalistic and pompous language. countable, uncountable

    "These were men, the chronicler continued, who ‘spoke pleasantly’, in the smooth officialese that most of Henry's counsellors were accustomed to deploy […]"

  2. 2
    the style of writing characteristic of some government officials: formal and obscure wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
buncombebunkumbureaucratesebureaucratesebusiness englishbusinessese

Example

More examples

"These were men, the chronicler continued, who ‘spoke pleasantly’, in the smooth officialese that most of Henry's counsellors were accustomed to deploy […]"

Etymology

From official + -ese.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.