mandarin
/ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.52 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
noun
A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
noun
noun
A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf. bobblehead.)
adj
Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.
noun
Example Sentences
- "LIKE THE MANDARINS of old, the rulers of China live behind high walls. When they emerge, which they rarely do, they travel in cars with rear windows curtained like sedan chairs. They live in the Chung Nan Hai, a walled park adjacent to the Forbidden City from where ancient dynasties ruled the Celestial Empire."
- "The mandarins who are managing this pandemic are fond of speaking of war."
- "Its sting preserved to literature a fierce peculiar genius [Waugh] who, in the 40 years before his death last week at 62, achieved recognition as the grand old mandarin of modern British prose and as a satirist whose skill at sticking pens in people rates him a roomy cell in the murderers’ row (Swift, Pope, Wilde, Shaw) of English letters."
- "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."
- "He lay quietly in the hydropathic bed while his heart shuddered and his eyes focused at random on objects in the room, simulating a calm he could not feel. The walls of green jade, the nightlight in the porcelain mandarin whose head nodded interminably if you touched him, the multi-clock that radiated the time of three planets and six satellites, the bed itself, a crystal pool flowing with carbonated glycerine at ninety-nine point nine Fahrenheit."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *men- Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr Proto-Indo-European *-trom Proto-Indo-Iranian *mántras Sanskrit मन्त्र॑ (mántra) Proto-Indo-Iranian *-in- Sanskrit -इन् (-in) Sanskrit म॒न्त्रिन् (mantrín)bor. Malay menteribor. Portuguese mandarimbor. English mandarin From Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, and its source, Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, an agent suffix).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/
- British English: /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/
Usage
- Derogatory
- British usage
- Informal
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Cleopatra mandarin
mandarin collar
mandarin fish
mandarin gown
mandarin square
mandarin garnet
Standard Mandarin
Wiktionary’s coverage of Mandarin terms
Frequently Paired Words
Synonyms
Beifanghua
Guanhua
Guoyu
Huayu
Mandarin Chinese
Putonghua
Standard Chinese
Standard Mandarin
Standard Spoken Chinese