circumlocution office
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.62 in modern English
36
Scrabble Score
20
Letters
6
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any organization that wastes time on bureaucracy to the detriment of its actual business.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of circumlocution office.
Example Sentences
- "The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without having to be told) the most important Department under government. […] It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office."
- "Then it is said that the reform would establish a circumlocution office and restore the great official practice of how not to do it. Now, I think it would be an extremely clever circumlocution office that would practise that principle more zealously than the present system does."
- "In Westchester County, N.Y., a foster parent pleaded with the Circumlocution Office not to return a 10-month old child to her natural mother, who kept missing visits, was being beaten by her husband and had a record of mental illness. The infant, however, was returned, and was beaten to death."
- "A survey of the implementation of State policy for the promotion of bilingualism shows the spirit of the Circumlocution Office is alive and well in the Irish public sector."