"pen-pusher" meaning in All languages combined

See pen-pusher on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: pen-pushers [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} pen-pusher (plural pen-pushers)
  1. (informal, often derogatory) A person who performs routine office work, involving mainly paperwork. Tags: derogatory, informal, often Categories (topical): People Synonyms: bureaucrat, pencil pusher, pen pusher, penpusher Related terms: desk job

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for pen-pusher meaning in All languages combined (2.3kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pen-pushers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pen-pusher (plural pen-pushers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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          "parents": [
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1925 June 21, “Letters: Miners Well Paid?”, in Pittsburgh Press, retrieved 2010-08-21",
          "text": "A pen-pusher in a Sixth ave. office said a coal miner is paid well. I asked him if he ever dug coal. Oh no!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988 Aug. 28, Trip Gabriel, Russia's Troubled Superstar,\" New York Times (retrieved 21 Aug 2010)",
          "text": "\"I had to prove to people who were unimportant, who'd never achieved anything in their lives—the administrator, the pen-pusher—that I could fight.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 July 12, Ramanujam Sridhar, “A time to change”, in Hindu BusinessLine, India, retrieved 2010-08-21",
          "text": "Investors may have a lopsided view of the company’s reputation simply because an uncaring pen pusher in the finance department responded lethargically to an investor’s query.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who performs routine office work, involving mainly paperwork."
      ],
      "id": "en-pen-pusher-en-noun--7G3czSo",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "routine",
          "routine"
        ],
        [
          "office",
          "office"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "paperwork",
          "paperwork"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, often derogatory) A person who performs routine office work, involving mainly paperwork."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "desk job"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "bureaucrat"
        },
        {
          "word": "pencil pusher"
        },
        {
          "word": "pen pusher"
        },
        {
          "word": "penpusher"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "informal",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "pen-pusher"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pen-pushers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "pen-pusher (plural pen-pushers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "desk job"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
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        "English countable nouns",
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
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        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:People"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1925 June 21, “Letters: Miners Well Paid?”, in Pittsburgh Press, retrieved 2010-08-21",
          "text": "A pen-pusher in a Sixth ave. office said a coal miner is paid well. I asked him if he ever dug coal. Oh no!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988 Aug. 28, Trip Gabriel, Russia's Troubled Superstar,\" New York Times (retrieved 21 Aug 2010)",
          "text": "\"I had to prove to people who were unimportant, who'd never achieved anything in their lives—the administrator, the pen-pusher—that I could fight.\""
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 July 12, Ramanujam Sridhar, “A time to change”, in Hindu BusinessLine, India, retrieved 2010-08-21",
          "text": "Investors may have a lopsided view of the company’s reputation simply because an uncaring pen pusher in the finance department responded lethargically to an investor’s query.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person who performs routine office work, involving mainly paperwork."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "routine",
          "routine"
        ],
        [
          "office",
          "office"
        ],
        [
          "work",
          "work"
        ],
        [
          "paperwork",
          "paperwork"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, often derogatory) A person who performs routine office work, involving mainly paperwork."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "bureaucrat"
        },
        {
          "word": "pencil pusher"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "informal",
        "often"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "pen pusher"
    },
    {
      "word": "penpusher"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pen-pusher"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.