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
The party, not the government, dictates policy and the foreign minister is essentially a functionary.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
Immediately above it, hidden from visitors’ eyes, sat a priestly functionary, who provided the god’s voice.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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
A few questioned whether the Wikimedia Foundation was taking threats seriously enough when they were raised by the site’s volunteer administrators and functionaries.
From Slate ● Oct. 22, 2025
A castrated man; especially, one of those who were employed as harem attendants or functionaries in certain Oriental courts.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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