civil servant
- noun
- /ˈsɪvəl ˈsɜrvənt/
- In her role as a civil servant, she helps to draft new regulations for environmental protection.
- work as a civil servant
- become a civil servant
- career civil servant
And the most irritating comment that you get from the civil servants is, but this is the regulation.
- And the most irritating comment that you get from the civil servants is, but this is the regulation.
- And I think Truss and Quateng put their budget through and they decided not to tell any civil servants because they didn't want them stopping it happening.
- He's saying senior civil servant told him to slow down the payments to the to the postmasters and this big dispute about what was said.
- Not frontline staff, not nurses and teachers, bureaucrats, civil servants and bosses.
- Because then a big portion of the civil servants public sector wouldn't be needed.
- Then I had an idea about a, a, a former civil servant pulling off a massive bank heist.
- The next one, government and civil servants.
- But my job to a degree was to get into her head in a way that civil servants do.
- So skilled tradesmen were promised free passage and Poyais and government contracts, bankers, doctors, civil servants, whole families signed up.
- No, they, you could say, well, the civil servant is dealing with a world that's not quite so bright and flashy and ephemeral as that of the actor.
- So you've got professional civil servants bullying each other in No, it, it that couldn't happen in a Majesty's Inland in Revenue.
Examples
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Most employees were civil servants who had worked for many years in the federal government.
Academic text (1995) -
The Akan men who had attended mission schools became civil servants or worked in European commercial firms.
Academic text (1994) -
- I was a civil servant.
-
Even the civil servants agree.
-
War production was generally in the hands of civil servants and military officers.
Academic text (1990) -
No, as a civil servant, I happen to know that the Ministry of Defence absolutely hate uncertainty of any kind.
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Through his committee, he contacted a civil servant in the Interior Ministry.
Fiction book (1994) -
In Britain, politicians, civil servants, and officers acting together finally determine defence policy.
Academic text (1999) -
In Turkey, women mostly work in the public sector as civil servants or assistants.
Academic text (2008) -
Workers, students, and civil servants have been hit hard by IMF stabilization measures.
Academic text (1995)
Synonyms
An employee who works for a politician, newspaper, or government office
A person who works in a government office and often cares more about rules than people
A person elected or appointed to carry out government work
A person who works for the government, elected or appointed
A person who works for the government and acts for it
A person who has an official job in a government or large organization
A person who holds an official government job that is not military
A person who works for the state in an official job
How Senior
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from 'civil' (relating to the public/state) plus 'servant' (one who serves): together they denote someone who serves the public or state, i.e. a government employee. This is a regular compositional noun phrase following common English patterns and is likely understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The term civil servant comes from the words civil (about citizens) and servant (a person who serves). It means someone who works for the government to serve the public, so today it is 'a government worker' and usually 'not an elected leader'.