Dictionary

officialdom en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• ə-fĭʹ-shəl-dəm
• /əˈfɪ.ʃəl.dəm/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree English official Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *dʰóh₁mos Proto-Germanic *dōmaz Proto-Germanic *-dōmaz Proto-West Germanic *-dōm Old English -dōm Middle English -dom English -dom English officialdom From official + -dom.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The people elected to government or employed in the civil service.
   • Nevertheless Armenian leaders at first retained faith in the reform agenda of the Porte, ascribing their ills to incompetent officialdom and Kurdish lawlessness. 2005, Donald Bloxham, The Great Game of Genocide, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, archived from the original on 10 Apr 2023, page 44:
   • [Magazine staffer:] In the bag may be the next chief—a wedding to one of officialdom's family will assure certainty. 1960 October 6, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 153:
   • An enormous amount of off-book money sloshes around Chinese business and officialdom, and some of it runs into handbags. 2013, James Palmer, ‘Kept women’, Aeon:
2. (countable, rare, uncountable) The state of being official
   • This was largely due to its widespread use in the army and officialdom in the Ottoman Empire. 2013, Christian Ortner, Hermann Hinterstoisser; [], The Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War. Uniforms & Equipment - from 1914 to 1918:

Forms

Translations (6)

fr fonctionnariat (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service) · ru чиновничество (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service) · ko 벼슬 (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service) · bg чиновничество (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service) · ko 관직 (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service) · ka ჩინოვნიკობა (The people elected to government or employed in the civil service)