Ombudsman
//ˈɑmbədzmən// noun
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 An appointed official whose duty is to investigate complaints, generally on behalf of individuals such as consumers or taxpayers, against institutions such as companies and government departments.
""All the Nordic ombudsmen have the same view: that circumcision of boys should not be done until the boy is old enough to decide himself if is something he wants to do,” Anne Lindboe, Norway's Ombudsman for Children, told DW."
- 2 a male government appointee who investigates complaints by private persons against the government wordnet
- 3 A designated internal mediator in an organization whose duty is to assist members with conflict resolution and other problems and to serve as an independent consultant to recommend changes to policies or procedures to improve organization effectiveness, efficiency, and humaneness.
Example
More examples""Ombudsman" is one of the widely used words that have been borrowed from Swedish."
Etymology
Borrowed from Swedish ombudsman (equivalent to ombud (“representative, proxy”) + man), from Old Norse umboðsmaðr.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.