官僚

Mandarin · pinyin guān liáo

Meanings

  1. bureaucrat
  2. bureaucracy
  3. bureaucratic
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Characters in this entry

官
guān · official, public servant
僚
liáo · companion, colleague; officials; bureaucracy; a pretty face
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

1–2 · guan1 liao2

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Compare dictionary sources Wiktionary · 3 senses · 1 Cantonese reading

Rime Cantonese 粵拼

gun1 liu4

Cantonese word readings for 官僚. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

adj

  1. bureaucratic

noun

  1. bureaucrat; apparatchik
  2. bureaucracy; bureaucratism

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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