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.
Synonyms of bureaucrat
Examples of bureaucrat in a Sentence
Richard Brody, New Yorker, 19 Dec. 2025
In a recent blog post, Cato Institute Scholar Colleen Hroncich said bureaucrats and policymakers make the big decisions in public school systems.
—Center Square, The Washington Examiner, 17 Dec. 2025
This draws the attention of a bureaucrat who hires mercenaries to go after him.
—Robert Lang, Deadline, 12 Dec. 2025
Parents, not bureaucrats, should be making decisions about their children’s education, aligned with their values.
—Hollie Silverman, MSNBC Newsweek, 9 Dec. 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 25 Dec. 2025.
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bureaucrat
noun
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