mandarin

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.

2. 2

   A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.

3. 3

   A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles.

   • When mandarins on the court pointed to obscure language in the Constitution to overturn a century of precedent and declare the income tax unconstitutional, Harlan sided with precedent[.]
   • When institutional mandarins such as this eminent pair set out to undermine the traditional basis for remunerating the products of the mind, you might expect a lowly scribe (such as your reviewer) to take umbrage.
4. ›+ 8 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Ellipsis of mandarin duck.

   2. 5

      A senior civil servant.

   3. 6

      A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf.…

      A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf. bobblehead.)

   4. 7

      Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins

      Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.

      • A mandarin impassivity had descended over Smiley's face. The earlier emotion was quite gone.
      • [Anatole] Broyard's columns were suffused with both worldliness and high culture. Wry, mandarin, even self-amused at times, he wrote like a man about town, but one who just happened to have all of Western literature at his fingertips.
      • Though alert to riddles' strong roots in vernacular narrative, Cook's tastes are mandarin, and she gives a loving account of Wallace Stevens's meditations on the life of poetic images and simile […].
   5. 8

      Ellipsis of mandarin orange

      Ellipsis of mandarin orange:

   6. 9

      An orange colour.

   7. 10

      Standard Mandarin, an official language of China and Taiwan, and one of four official…

      Standard Mandarin, an official language of China and Taiwan, and one of four official languages in Singapore; Putonghua, Guoyu or Huayu.

      • Owner David Yeh says his Little-One bar -- a homophone to Lithuania's Mandarin name "Litaowan" -- started getting more attention last year after Vilnius became the first EU government to donate vaccines.
   8. 11

      A branch of the Chinese languages, consisting of many dialects

      A branch of the Chinese languages, consisting of many dialects; Guanhua or Beifanghua.

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