functionary
Example Sentences
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Entertaining down to the last minute, the Bastille Opera finally opened its season with a sad-faced functionary who stepped in front of the curtain to tell us that the “Simone Boccanegra” baritone was indisposed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Because he was an obscure functionary, the lawmaker assumed that he would be an Aaron, Moses’ brother and supporter.
From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2025
One of my professors, Harry Wexler, had been a young functionary under the midcentury mayor-for-life Dick Lee.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2025
Traditionally, the state superintendent has acted as more of a functionary, allocating funding and serving as a repository for student data.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2024
Immediately above it, hidden from visitors’ eyes, sat a priestly functionary, who provided the god’s voice.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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 novel echoes thinkers like Hannah Arendt in pointing out how true-believing functionaries, the butt of ridicule in “normal” times, can help subsume all reason and decency to usurp a compliant and too-comfortable ruling class.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
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
That so many corrupt functionaries and cartel capos ultimately face responsibility in the United States — and not in Mexico — underscores a fundamental weakness of the Mexican justice system, observers say.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2025
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
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Left Hand of Darkness
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Around the World in Eighty Days
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