"public servant" meaning in English

See public servant in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: public servants [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} public servant (plural public servants)
  1. A person employed by the government. Categories (topical): Government Synonyms: civil servant
    Sense id: en-public_servant-en-noun-o~Ar3KOS Disambiguation of Government: 100 0
  2. (historical) Someone who labours for the public good; a convict assigned to work on public projects. Tags: historical Categories (topical): Occupations, People
    Sense id: en-public_servant-en-noun-~Ldkry~U Disambiguation of Occupations: 20 80 Disambiguation of People: 0 100 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 41 59 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 17 83 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 15 85

Inflected forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "public servants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "public servant (plural public servants)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "100 0",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Government",
          "orig": "en:Government",
          "parents": [
            "Politics",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Judith Brett, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard, page 145:",
          "text": "Whitlam redefined the Labor Party as the party of Deakinite liberalism and the natural home of good public servants like his father. He was, he said, the first Prime Minister of Australia who had lived in Canberra, ‘the son of a great public servant, among whose colleagues were great public servants’.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Malcolm Fraser, Margaret Simons, Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, page 192:",
          "text": "Today, Fraser says of Tange: ‘He was one of the best public servants Australia has ever had’.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Rodney Smith, Ariadne Vromen, Ian Cook, Contemporary Politics in Australia: Theories, Practices and Issues, page 242:",
          "text": "While the Westminster system has not changed over the past 30 years, there has been major cultural change amongst Australian public servants.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person employed by the government."
      ],
      "id": "en-public_servant-en-noun-o~Ar3KOS",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "civil servant"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
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          "_dis": "41 59",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "17 83",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "15 85",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
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        {
          "_dis": "20 80",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Occupations",
          "orig": "en:Occupations",
          "parents": [
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            "Work",
            "Human",
            "Human activity",
            "All topics",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "0 100",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1656, James Harrington, Oceana:",
          "text": "And whosoever shall refuse any one of his three Essays [...] shall be deem'd a Helot or public Servant, shall pay a fifth part of his yearly Revenue, besides all other Taxes, to the Common-wealth for his Protection, and be incapable of bearing any Magistracy except such as is proper to the Law.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes:",
          "text": "Immediately / Was Samson as a public servant brought, / In thir state Livery clad; before him Pipes / And Timbrels, on each side went armed guards, / Both horse and foot before him and behind / Archers, and Slingers, Cataphracts and Spears.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1802, George Barrington, The history of New South Wales including Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Parramatta, Sydney, and all its Dependancies, page 250:",
          "text": "[…]notwithstanding an order which was given by Governor Phillip, in which the colony were informed, that the public servants (convicts) had no property, their clothing, time, and labour, being the property of the Government, and not at their own disposal.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Noel George Butlin, Forming a Colonial Economy: Australia 1810-1850, page 75:",
          "text": "For special reasons, the use of convicts as public servants warrants separate attention.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who labours for the public good; a convict assigned to work on public projects."
      ],
      "id": "en-public_servant-en-noun-~Ldkry~U",
      "links": [
        [
          "labour",
          "labour"
        ],
        [
          "public",
          "public"
        ],
        [
          "convict",
          "convict"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) Someone who labours for the public good; a convict assigned to work on public projects."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "public servant"
  ],
  "word": "public servant"
}
{
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Government",
    "en:Occupations",
    "en:People"
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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "public servants",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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    }
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  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
      "expansion": "public servant (plural public servants)",
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  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2003, Judith Brett, Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: From Alfred Deakin to John Howard, page 145:",
          "text": "Whitlam redefined the Labor Party as the party of Deakinite liberalism and the natural home of good public servants like his father. He was, he said, the first Prime Minister of Australia who had lived in Canberra, ‘the son of a great public servant, among whose colleagues were great public servants’.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Malcolm Fraser, Margaret Simons, Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs, page 192:",
          "text": "Today, Fraser says of Tange: ‘He was one of the best public servants Australia has ever had’.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Rodney Smith, Ariadne Vromen, Ian Cook, Contemporary Politics in Australia: Theories, Practices and Issues, page 242:",
          "text": "While the Westminster system has not changed over the past 30 years, there has been major cultural change amongst Australian public servants.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A person employed by the government."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "civil servant"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1656, James Harrington, Oceana:",
          "text": "And whosoever shall refuse any one of his three Essays [...] shall be deem'd a Helot or public Servant, shall pay a fifth part of his yearly Revenue, besides all other Taxes, to the Common-wealth for his Protection, and be incapable of bearing any Magistracy except such as is proper to the Law.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes:",
          "text": "Immediately / Was Samson as a public servant brought, / In thir state Livery clad; before him Pipes / And Timbrels, on each side went armed guards, / Both horse and foot before him and behind / Archers, and Slingers, Cataphracts and Spears.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1802, George Barrington, The history of New South Wales including Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Parramatta, Sydney, and all its Dependancies, page 250:",
          "text": "[…]notwithstanding an order which was given by Governor Phillip, in which the colony were informed, that the public servants (convicts) had no property, their clothing, time, and labour, being the property of the Government, and not at their own disposal.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1994, Noel George Butlin, Forming a Colonial Economy: Australia 1810-1850, page 75:",
          "text": "For special reasons, the use of convicts as public servants warrants separate attention.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who labours for the public good; a convict assigned to work on public projects."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) Someone who labours for the public good; a convict assigned to work on public projects."
      ],
      "tags": [
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  "wikipedia": [
    "public servant"
  ],
  "word": "public servant"
}

Download raw JSONL data for public servant meaning in English (3.4kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). 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.