officiousness

"Fundamental to setting the situation right is developing a culture of safe and regular fire use in California and neighboring states by all landowners and managers, and reducing the officiousness, risk aversion and bureaucracy that hinders access to the tool by the public."

We are quickly called into an evaluation room where a social worker who toggles between empathy and no-nonsense officiousness spends the next 90 minutes interviewing Ash and me, then Ash alone, then both of us together again.

As happened during Prohibition, increasing swaths of the nation are ignoring officiousness that is not plausibly related to a proportionate public good, and that is clearly related to social bossiness.

His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter.

There’s an officiousness—an almost disingenuous toadying—to these interactions that I, with my modern, fashionable prejudices, find a bit funny and gross.