bureaucrats

noun

plural of bureaucrat
as in officials
a worker in a government agency the bureaucrats at the town hall seem to think that we need a building permit to build a tree house

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of bureaucrats The bureaucrats who failed to prevent the fraud often remain anonymous. — Sreedhar Potarazu, Baltimore Sun, 19 Aug. 2026 America’s goal should be more cures, more treatment options and better care, not fewer innovations dictated by Washington bureaucrats. — Steve Forbes, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2026 The order directs his administration to toughen air pollution evaluations, add noise restrictions and expand city bureaucrats’ authority to review water and electricity usage at data center facilities. — Jake Sheridan, Chicago Tribune, 17 Aug. 2026 This entails handing out thousands of patronage jobs to rabbis, bureaucrats, undertakers, and inspectors. — Bernard Avishai, New Yorker, 11 Aug. 2026 The bureaucrats in Brussels are struggling to keep up with the breakneck pace of technological progress. — Editorial Board, Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2026 Porter sketched Trotsky holding forth at a conference table, proselytizing to the American bureaucrats. — Dan Chiasson, The New York Review of Books, 1 Aug. 2026 Businesses and bureaucrats got an early indicator this week of whether the World Cup was worth the cost for Los Angeles — beer sales. — Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2026 Several Japanese bureaucrats also died by suicide in recent years in cases linked to overwork. — Miranda Jeyaretnam, Time, 23 July 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bureaucrats
  1. officials
  2. employees
  3. clerks
  4. functionaries
  5. workers
Noun
  • More than two dozen law enforcement officials, from crime analysts to chiefs of police, have been charged with violating their oaths of office and conducting unauthorized searches within the Flock Safety system in Georgia in the past few months.
    — Irene Wright, USA Today, 4 Sep. 2026
  • At the time, officials said the travel document would only be available at the Washington Passport Agency.
    — Angel Saunders, PEOPLE, 4 Sep. 2026
Definition of officials
Noun
  • Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images Two former Golden State Warriors employees have sued the NBA franchise, alleging gender, age and race-based discrimination, workplace harassment and retaliation tied to their terminations.
    — Devon Henderson, New York Times, 2 Sep. 2026
  • As a correspondent for the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), Akiyama was chosen out of his 162 fellow employees who applied to fly to space in celebration of the network’s 40th anniversary.
    — Robert Pearlman, ArsTechnica, 2 Sep. 2026
Definition of employees
Noun
  • Shillings said the secretary of state's office should provide better tools and training to county clerks to prevent future errors.
    — Hayleigh Colombo, IndyStar, 27 Aug. 2026
  • Turnover within the court itself, particularly among judges and clerks, has contributed to case delays and disorganization, said Michael Sharma-Crawford, a local immigration attorney.
    — Taylor O'Connor, Kansas City Star, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of clerks
Noun
  • Both Washington and Mexico City have launched crackdowns against a complex web of unscrupulous functionaries, front companies and document fraudsters, among others.
    — Foreign Correspondent, Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 2026
  • To the extent that their fellow-citizens refer to them at all, our government functionaries are perceived not as active agents of change but as inert, self-protecting obstructions.
    — The New Yorker, New Yorker, 4 July 2026
Definition of functionaries
Noun
  • Their crabs are steamed, frozen and packed into boxes to be shipped to Sri Lanka, where workers remove the meat by hand.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 2 Sep. 2026
  • The payrolls processing firm said firms added 38,000 workers, fewer than the upwardly revised 46,000 in July and below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 47,000.
    — Jeff Cox, CNBC, 2 Sep. 2026
Definition of workers

Browse Nearby Words

bureaucratic
bureaucrats
bureaus
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Bureaucrats.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bureaucrats. Accessed 6 Sep. 2026.

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