mandarin
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/
ipa: /mæn.dəˈɹɪn/
Forms: form: mandarins
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *men-
Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr
Proto-Indo-European *-trom
Proto-Indo-Iranian *mántras
Sanskrit मन्त्र॑ (mántra)
Sanskrit -इन् (-in)
Sanskrit म॒न्त्रिन् (mantrín)bor.
Malay menteribor.
Portuguese mandarimbor.
English mandarin
From Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, and its source, Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, an agent suffix). In Chinese folk etymology, the word originates from Mandarin 滿大人 /满大人 (Mǎndàrén, literally “Manchu important man”).
Senses: examples: text: LIKE THE MANDARINS of old, the rulers of China live behind high walls. When they emerge, which they rarely do, they travel in cars with rear windows curtained like sedan chairs.
They live in the Chung Nan Hai, a walled park adjacent to the Forbidden City from where ancient dynasties ruled the Celestial Empire.
ref: 1991, Chris Mullin, The Year of the Fire Monkey (Fiction), London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 252:
glosses: A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
glosses: A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
examples: text: Its sting preserved to literature a fierce peculiar genius [Waugh] who, in the 40 years before his death last week at 62, achieved recognition as the grand old mandarin of modern British prose and as a satirist whose skill at sticking pens in people rates him a roomy cell in the murderers’ row (Swift, Pope, Wilde, Shaw) of English letters.
ref: 1966 April 22, “The Beauty of His Malice”, in Time, archived from the original on 06 Nov 2012:
text: When mandarins on the court pointed to obscure language in the Constitution to overturn a century of precedent and declare the income tax unconstitutional, Harlan sided with precedent[.]
ref: 2021 June 23, Peter S. Canellos, “Why The ‘Trump Court’ Won’t Be Like Trump”, in Politico:
text: When institutional mandarins such as this eminent pair set out to undermine the traditional basis for remunerating the products of the mind, you might expect a lowly scribe (such as your reviewer) to take umbrage.
ref: 2024 January 13, Boyd Tonkin, “The culture of copyright creep”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 9:
glosses: A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles.
topics: biology
natural-sciences
ornithology
glosses: Ellipsis of mandarin duck.
glosses: A senior civil servant.
examples: text: He lay quietly in the hydropathic bed while his heart shuddered and his eyes focused at random on objects in the room, simulating a calm he could not feel. The walls of green jade, the nightlight in the porcelain mandarin whose head nodded interminably if you touched him, the multi-clock that radiated the time of three planets and six satelittes, the bed itself, a crystal pool flowing with carbonated glycerine at ninety-nine point nine Fahrenheit.
ref: 1953, Alfred Bester, The Demolished Man:
glosses: A figurine of a Chinese person with movable head that was popular in the 1950s. (Cf. bobblehead.)
Derived terms: Cleopatra mandarin
lemandarin
mandarinal
mandarinate
mandarin collar
mandarindom
mandariness
mandarin fish
mandarin gown
mandarinic
mandarining
mandarinism
mandarinize
mandarinquat
mandarinship
mandarin square