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functionary

[fuhngk-shuh-ner-ee] / ˈfʌŋk ʃəˌnɛr i /


NOUN
bureaucrat
Synonyms




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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President Masoud Pezeshkian is a functionary, selected in haste in 2024 to replace Ebrahim Raisi, whose helicopter crashed into a mountain.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

One of my professors, Harry Wexler, had been a young functionary under the midcentury mayor-for-life Dick Lee.

From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2025

Adolf Ziegler, the Nazi functionary charged with overseeing the exhibition, perceived no ambiguity.

From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2025

Fred Specktor, in his son’s eyes, isn’t a mere functionary but a man who tried to retain the elements of agenting that felt like making art — negotiation, persuasion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2025

Immediately above it, hidden from visitors’ eyes, sat a priestly functionary, who provided the god’s voice.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Its cast includes the bickering members of a Sri Lankan hotel cleaner’s family, insecure American freshmen, dead-end third-tier college professors and their highflying Ivy League counterparts and dispirited university functionaries.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and other Kremlin functionaries live in highly-secure estates near the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway west of Moscow, a suburban community dubbed “Moscow Beverly Hills.”

From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2026

The most important people in the country all along were the rule-followers—corporate attorneys, regional judges, visa-processing functionaries, tax assessors, customs officials, food and drug regulators.

From Slate ● Sep. 19, 2025

But Mr. Gantz and Mr. Cameron are no mere functionaries.

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2024

Although prison guards and their legitimate children belong by blood to the core class, they are fringe functionaries locked away for most of their working lives in the freezing hinterlands.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden




Vocabulary lists containing functionary


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