as in legalese
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Recent Examples of bureaucratese
Details of new initiatives were bogged down by mind-numbing bureaucratese.
—
Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 11 Apr. 2023
The most striking aspect of Putin’s failure to accept responsibility for the Kursk disaster was his retreat into bureaucratese.
—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2020
Viewers in the late Soviet era had become accustomed to a heavy lexicon of bureaucratese and boosterism that verged on the absurd.
—Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2019
As reporter Alfonso Chardy noted at the time, the facility’s mental health treatment center—known in placid bureaucratese as the Krome Transitional Unit (KTU)—had never before been shown to the media.
—Ken Silverstein, The New Republic, 19 Aug. 2019
In that sense, the beige tone of Mr. Mueller’s report — that desiccating bureaucratese denying the events their juice and soundbite-ability — is something of a radical act in this day and age.
—James Poniewozik, New York Times, 25 June 2019
Graff, a magazine journalist, delights in describing these hideaways (whose existence was first revealed in the 1990s) and the plans for using them; as a result, his narrative sometimes gets bogged down in elaborate, acronym-laden bureaucratese.
—Justin Vogt, New York Times, 16 June 2017
Sharon Grigsby, Dallas News, 11 Apr. 2023
The most striking aspect of Putin’s failure to accept responsibility for the Kursk disaster was his retreat into bureaucratese.
—Masha Gessen, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2020
Viewers in the late Soviet era had become accustomed to a heavy lexicon of bureaucratese and boosterism that verged on the absurd.
—Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 9 Dec. 2019
As reporter Alfonso Chardy noted at the time, the facility’s mental health treatment center—known in placid bureaucratese as the Krome Transitional Unit (KTU)—had never before been shown to the media.
—Ken Silverstein, The New Republic, 19 Aug. 2019
In that sense, the beige tone of Mr. Mueller’s report — that desiccating bureaucratese denying the events their juice and soundbite-ability — is something of a radical act in this day and age.
—James Poniewozik, New York Times, 25 June 2019
Graff, a magazine journalist, delights in describing these hideaways (whose existence was first revealed in the 1990s) and the plans for using them; as a result, his narrative sometimes gets bogged down in elaborate, acronym-laden bureaucratese.
—Justin Vogt, New York Times, 16 June 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bureaucratese
Noun
-
So that felt like a huge success, and it was born out of research — just digging in, finding out more about the technical things, from the legalese that these characters speak to how a dash-cam DVR actually works.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
11 June 2025
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When Agreements Become Infrastructure Perhaps the most profound shift is this: trade agreements, once enshrined in legalese and negotiated by diplomats, are now being expressed as code.—
Sean Lee,
Forbes.com,
5 June 2025
Noun
-
The overly earnest character speaks in a hilariously cringey Gen Z self-help psychobabble that continuously grates on Enrique’s nerves.—
Pam Kragen,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
30 May 2025
-
Sometimes, such content might be portrayed as being valid psychological science versus non-sensical psychobabble.—
Lance Eliot,
Forbes.com,
11 Apr. 2025
Noun
-
The six-episode limited series feels like a long movie broken into arbitrary episodes, its ending is mired by digital gobbledygook, and Marvel still doesn’t know how magic makes sense in a universe ruled by advanced technology and literal gods.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
24 June 2025
-
As always, Yellowjackets is full of mind-bending detours, supernatural gobbledygook, and foliage-laden costumes.—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
18 Feb. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Bureaucratese.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bureaucratese. Accessed 13 Jul. 2025.
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