Bureaucracy
[,bjʊ(ə)'rɒkrəsɪ] or [bjʊ'rɑkrəsi]
Definition
(noun.) any organization in which action is obstructed by insistence on unnecessary procedures and red tape.
(noun.) a government that is administered primarily by bureaus that are staffed with nonelective officials.
(noun.) nonelective government officials.
Editor: Upton--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A system of carrying on the business of government by means of departments or bureaus, each under the control of a chief, in contradiction to a system in which the officers of government have an associated authority and responsibility; also, government conducted on this system.
(n.) Government officials, collectively.
Inputed by Carter
Definition
n. a system of government centralised in graded series of officials responsible only to their chiefs and controlling every detail of public and private life.—ns. Bureau′crat Bureau′cratist one who advocates government by bureaucracy.—adj. Bureaucrat′ic relating to or having the nature of a bureaucracy.—adv. Bureaucrat′ically.
Checked by Gwen
Examples
- It steers a course between exploitation by a bureaucracy in the interests of the consumer--the socialist danger--and oppressive monopolies by industrial unions--the syndicalist danger. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- Spanish, the language of bureaucracy. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- The Caliph had become a luxurious Emperor or King of Kings; the administration had changed from a patriarchal system to a bureaucracy. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The unquestioned need for experts in politics is full of the very real danger that detailed preparation may give us a bureaucracy--a government by men divorced from human tradition. Walter Lippmann. A Preface to Politics.
- Even here one man can make a bureaucracy with his mouth. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- They have settled happily into the sloth and bureaucracy of governing. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
Typist: Nicholas