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
The piece suggests this physical restraint conveyed an image of a cautious functionary rather than a dynamic leader capable of governing California during turbulent times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 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
Whenever he referred to him in his speeches he was careful to strip him of any human attributes and present him as an abstract functionary in some larger scheme.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Its cast includes the bickering members of a Sri Lankan hotel cleaner’s family, insecure American freshmen, dead-end third-tier college professors and their highflying Ivy League counterparts and dispirited university functionaries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
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 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
As one group of highly placed religious functionaries to another, don’t do this to us!
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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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