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
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
For the next five minutes, the eyes of the presiding judge, the jury, and every functionary of the court are glued to the main doors.
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
Both Washington and Mexico City have launched crackdowns against a complex web of unscrupulous functionaries, front companies and document fraudsters, among others.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 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 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
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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The Left Hand of Darkness
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