# bureaucracy

Pronunciation: US say "byuu-RAH-kruh-see" /bjʊˈɹɑ.kɹə.si/; UK say "byuu-ROK-ruh-see" /bjʊəˈɹɒk.ɹə.si/; AUS say "byuu-RAWK-ruh-see" /bjʊəˈɹɔk.ɹə si/

## Noun

1. Excessive paperwork and rigid routine that bogs down any organization, body, or process.
   - Simple: Too many rules and slow steps that make simple things hard to get done.
   - _The hospital's bureaucracy delayed her treatment by several weeks._
   - _Endless bureaucracy meant that even small purchases required five separate signatures._
2. The body of officials and administrators who run an organization, especially the appointed staff of a government.
   - Simple: The group of officials and workers who run a government or large organization.
   - _The federal bureaucracy carries out the laws passed by the legislature._
   - _She spent most of her career working inside the country's vast bureaucracy._
3. A form of government in which appointed bureau officials and administrators hold authority, rather than elected representatives.
   - Simple: A way of running a country where appointed officials, not elected leaders, hold the power.
   - _The empire eventually settled into a stable bureaucracy run by trained officials._
   - _Political theorists have long debated whether bureaucracy can remain accountable to the public._
4. A system of administration organized into departments, with division of labor and a hierarchy of authority, designed to handle a large volume of work in a routine way.
   - Simple: A system that splits work into departments with clear ranks and set jobs to handle large amounts of work.
   - _The firm replaced its informal structure with a formal bureaucracy as it grew._
   - _Weber described the modern bureaucracy as one of the most efficient ways to manage complex tasks._

## Origin

From bureau + -cracy, taken from French bureaucratie, a term coined by Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay from bureau ("office") and -cratie ("rule of").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/bureaucracy (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).