An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organisation or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either his own or that of his superior and/or employer, public or legally private). In politics, a mandate is the authority granted by an electorate to act as its representative. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... This article is about authority as a concept. ...

A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public administration or government, through either election, appointment, or employment. A bureaucrat is a member of the bureaucracy. An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election. Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited. Public Administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of government policy. ... This article is about the political process. ... Appointment may refer to a number of things, including the following: Look up appointment in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about work. ... A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy, usually within an institution of the government. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      This article is about the sociological concept. ... This page includes English translations of several Latin phrases and abbreviations such as . ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent. Open seat redirects here. ...

Word history

The word official as a noun has been recorded since the Middle English period, first seen in 1314. It comes from the Old French official (12th century), from the Latin officialis ("attendant to a magistrate, public official"), the noun use of the original adjective officialis ("of or belonging to duty, service, or office") from officium ("office"). The meaning "person in charge of some public work or duty" was first recorded in 1555. The adjective is first attested in English in 1533, via the Old French oficial. In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ...

The informal term officialese, the jargon of "officialdom," was first recorded in 1884. IDk i farted! lol he he its smells really bad Noobs For the glossary of hacker slang, see Jargon File. ...

Uses of the noun

In Roman Antiquity

An officialis (plural officiales) was the official term (somewhat comparable to a modern civil servant) for any member of the officium (staff) of a high dignitary such as a governor. Officium (plural officia) is a Latin word with various meanings, including service, (sense of) duty, courtesy, ceremony and the likes. ...

Ecclesiastical judiciary

In Canon law, the word or its Latin original officialis is used absolutely as the legal title of a diocesan bishop's judicial vicar who shares the bishop's ordinary judicial power over the diocese and presides over the diocesan ecclesiastical court. Canon Law is the ecclesiastical law of the Roman Catholic Church. ... Vicariate redirects here. ... For other senses of this word, see ordinary (disambiguation). ... An ecclesiastical court (also called Court Christian) is any of certain courts having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. ...

The 1983 Code of Canon Law gives precedence to the title Judicial Vicar, rather than that of Officialis (canon 1420). The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches uses only the title Judicial Vicar (canon 191). In the Roman Catholic Church, a judicial vicar is an officer of the diocese who has ordinary power to judge cases in the diocesan ecclesiastical court. ...

In German, the related noun Offizialat was also used for an official bureau in a diocese that did much of its administration, comprising the vicariate-general, an adjoined secretariat, a registry office and a chancery. A vicar general (often abbreviated VG) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority. ...

The title of official principal, together with that of vicar-general, has in Anglicanism? England been merged in that of Diocesan chancellor of a diocese. A vicar general (often abbreviated VG) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority. ... A diocesan chancery is the branch of administration which handles all written documents used in the official government of a Catholic diocese. ...

Other officials

In sports, the term official is used to describe a person enforcing playing rules in the capacity of a linesman, referee and umpire; also specified by the discipline, e.g. American football official, Ice hockey official. A sport consists of a physical activity or skill carried out with a recreational purpose: for competition, for self-enjoyment, to attain excellence, for the development of a skill, or some combination of these. ... A linesman can refer to: An assistant referee in soccer Linesman, in ice hockey This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... A referee is a person who has authority to make decisions about play in many sports. ... In sports, an umpire is an official appointed to rule on plays and procedure. ... In American football, an official is a person who has some responsibility in enforcing the rules and maintaining the order of the game. ... American Hockey League referee Dean Morton In ice hockey, an official is a person who has some responsibility in enforcing the rules or maintaining the order of the game. ...

The term officer is close to being a synonym (but has more military connotations). A functionary is someone who carries out a particular role within an organization; this again is quite a close synonym for official, as a noun, but with connotations closer to bureaucrat. Any such person acts in their official capacity, in carrying out the duties of their office; they are also said to officiate, for example in a ceremony. A public official is an official of central or local government. Connotation is a subjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in a language, i. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy, usually within an institution of the government. ... Part of the ceremony of the Changing of the Guard in Whitehall, London. ...

Max Weber on bureaucratic officials

Max Weber gave as definition of a bureaucratic official : For the politician, see Max Weber (politician). ...

• he is personally free and appointed to his position on the basis of conduct
• he exercises the authority delegated to him in accordance with impersonal rules, and his loyalty is enlisted on behalf of the faithful execution of his official duties
• his appointment and job placement are dependent upon his technical qualifications
• his administrative work is a full-time occupation
• his work is rewarded by a regular salary and prospects of advancement in a lifetime career.

An official must exercise his judgment and his skills, but his duty is to place these at the service of a higher authority; ultimately he is responsible only for the impartial execution of assigned tasks and must sacrifice his personal judgment if it runs counter to his official duties.

Official as an adjective

As an adjective, official often but not always means pertaining to the government, either as state employee or having state recognition, or to analogous governance, or to formal (especially legally regulated) proceeding as opposed to informal business. Some examples: In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ...

• An official holiday is a public holiday, having national (or regional) recognition.
• An official language is a language recognised by a government, for its own use in administration, or for the use of citizens (for example on signposts).
• An official spokesperson would be an individual empowered to speak for the government, or some part of it such as a ministry, on a range of issues and on the record for the media.
• An official statement is issued by an organisation as an expression of its corporate position or opinion; an official apology is an apology similarly issued by an organisation (as opposed to an apology by an individual).
• Official policy is policy publicly acknowledged and defended by an organisation. In these cases unofficial is an antonym, and variously may mean informal, unrecognised, personal or unacknowledged.
• An official strike is a strike organised and recognised by a labour union, as opposed to an unofficial strike at grassroots level.
• An official school is a school administered by the government or by a local authority, as opposite to a private school or religious school.
• An official history, for example of an institution or business, or particularly of a war or military unit, is a history written as a commission, with the assumption of co-operation with access to records and archives; but without necessarily full editorial independence.
• An official biography is usually on the same lines, written with access to private papers and the support of the family of the subject.

The word holiday has related but different meanings in English-speaking countries, with the exception of the United States where usage differs greatly. ... An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. ... The most common symbols used in trail blazing Trail blazing means marking paths with blazes, that is coloured signs that follow each other in a certain, though not necessarily exactly defined distance and mark the direction of the trail towards a peak of the mountain or towards any other destination... A ministry is a department of a government, led by a minister. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... Students in Rome, Italy. ... For the film of this title, see Private School (film). ... A parochial school is a type of private school which engages in religious education in addition to conventional education. ... For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... A military unit is an organisation within an armed force. ... Freedom of the press (or press freedom) is the guarantee by a government of free public press for its citizens and their associations, extended to members of news gathering organizations, and their published reporting. ...

See also

Look up official in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Coordinatorism is an economic system ruled not by the nominal owners but by a new class of managers and officials
• official trip

Wiktionary (a portmanteau of wiki and dictionary) is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 151 languages. ... Coordinatorism is an economic system in which control is held neither by people who own capital, nor by the workers, but instead is held by an intervening class of coordinators, typically in the roles of managers, administrators, engineers, university intellectuals, doctors, lawyers. ... The new class is a term to describe the privileged ruling class of bureaucrats and Communist party functionaries which typically arises in a Stalinist communist state. ...

Sources and references

(incomplete)

• This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Etymology OnLine
• Pauly-Wissowa