bureaucrat
noun
Did you know?
In French, a bureau is a desk, so bureaucracy means basically "government by people at desks". Despite the bad-mouthing they often get, partly because they usually have to stick so close to the rules, bureaucrats do almost all the day-to-day work that keeps a government running. The idea of a bureaucracy is to split up the complicated task of governing a large country into smaller jobs that can be handled by specialists. Bureaucratic government is nothing new; the Roman empire had an enormous and complex bureaucracy, with the bureaucrats at lower levels reporting to bureaucrats above them, and so on up to the emperor himself.
Examples of bureaucrat in a Sentence
Nicholas Creel, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Apr. 2025
Her mother had just died, so the last thing the caller needed was to be on hold forever waiting for a government agency bureaucrat to finally pick up the phone.
—Leonard Greene, New York Daily News, 13 Apr. 2025
Call them bureaucrats, but these dedicated, nonpartisan professionals have improved and saved your life many times over.
—Chicago Tribune, 7 Apr. 2025
Through vague statutory language, the bill would also empower bureaucrats to circumvent the legislative process and add even more regulations in the future.
—James R. Mason, National Review, 5 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bureaucrat
Cite this Entry
“Bureaucrat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucrat. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.
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bureaucrat
noun
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