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mandarin
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Pronunciation
- (General American, Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/
Audio (US): (file) Audio (General Australian): (file) - (UK, General Australian) IPA(key): /mæn.dəˈɹɪn/
- Hyphenation: man‧da‧rin
Etymology 1
Etymology tree
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”).
Noun
mandarin (plural mandarins)
- (historical) A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire. [from 1580s]
- 1991, Chris Mullin, The Year of the Fire Monkey (Fiction), London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 252:
- 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.
- A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
- (sometimes derogatory) A pedantic senior person of influence in academia or literary circles.
- 1966 April 22, “The Beauty of His Malice”, in Time, archived from the original on 6 November 2012:
- 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.
- 2021 June 23, Peter S. Canellos, “Why The ‘Trump Court’ Won’t Be Like Trump”, in Politico:
- 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[.]
- 2024 January 13, Boyd Tonkin, “The culture of copyright creep”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 9:
- 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.
- (ornithology) Ellipsis of mandarin duck.
- (informal, British) A senior civil servant.
Derived terms
Descendants
- → Irish: mandairín
Translations
Chinese Imperial bureaucrat
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elitist bureaucrat
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academic or literary elitist
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mandarin duck — see mandarin duck
informal: senior civil servant
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Adjective
mandarin (comparative more mandarin, superlative most mandarin)
- Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist. [from 20th c.]
- 1979, John Le Carré, Smiley's People, Folio Society, published 2010, page 58:
- A mandarin impassivity had descended over Smiley's face. The earlier emotion was quite gone.
- 1997, Henry Louis Gates Jr., “The Passing of Anatole Broyard”, in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man, New York: Random House, pages 180–181:
- [Anatole] Broyard's columns were suffused with both worldliness and high culture. Wry, mandarin, even self-amused at times, he wrote like a man about town, but one who just happened to have all of Western literature at his fingertips.
- 2007, Marina Warner, “Doubly Damned”, in London Review of Books, 29:3, p. 26:
- Though alert to riddles' strong roots in vernacular narrative, Cook's tastes are mandarin, and she gives a loving account of Wallace Stevens's meditations on the life of poetic images and simile […] .
Derived terms
Etymology 2
From French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.
Noun
mandarin (plural mandarins)
- Ellipsis of mandarin orange:
- A small, sweet citrus fruit.
- A tree of the species Citrus reticulata.
- An orange colour.
- mandarin:
Hypernyms
Translations
fruit — see mandarin orange
tree — see mandarin orange
Further reading
Anagrams
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Crimean Tatar
Etymology
Noun
mandarin
- mandarin (fruit)
Declension
References
- Mirjejev, V. A.; Usejinov, S. M. (2002), Ukrajinsʹko-krymsʹkotatarsʹkyj slovnyk [Ukrainian – Crimean Tatar Dictionary], Simferopol: Dolya, →ISBN
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Danish
Etymology
From Portuguese mandarim.
Noun
mandarin c (singular definite mandarinen, plural indefinite mandariner)
- mandarin (Chinese Imperial bureaucrat)
- mandarin orange, mandarin (a small, sweet citrus fruit)
Inflection
Noun
mandarin n
References
Faroese
Etymology
From Danish mandarin, from Dutch mandorijn or Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri, from Hindi मन्त्रि (mantri), from Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), from मन्त्र (mantra, “counsel, maxim, mantra”) + -इन् (-in, “an agent suffix”).
Noun
mandarin f (genitive singular mandarinar, plural mandarinir)
- mandarin orange, mandarin (a small, sweet citrus fruit)
Declension
Noun
mandarin n (genitive singular mandarins)
Declension
See also
- mandarinur
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French
Pronunciation
Adjective
mandarin (feminine mandarine, masculine plural mandarins, feminine plural mandarines)
- mandarin (of the former Chinese empire)
Derived terms
Descendants
- → Breton: mandarin
- → Greek: μανδαρίνος (mandarínos)
Noun
mandarin m (uncountable)
- Mandarin (language)
Further reading
- “mandarin”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
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Hungarian
Indonesian
Norwegian Bokmål
Norwegian Nynorsk
Romanian
Serbo-Croatian
Swedish
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