mandarin

• (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

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”).

mandarin (plural mandarins)

1. (historical) A high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
   • 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.

2. A pedantic or elitist bureaucrat.
3. (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 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.

4. (ornithology) Ellipsis of mandarin duck.
5. (informal, British) A senior civil servant.

• → Irish: mandairín

mandarin (comparative more mandarin, superlative most mandarin)

1. Pertaining to or reminiscent of mandarins; deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow, obscurantist.
   • 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:

     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 .

From French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.

mandarin (plural mandarins)

1. Ellipsis of mandarin orange:
   2. A small, sweet citrus fruit.
   4. A tree of the species Citrus reticulata.
3. An orange colour.

   mandarin:  

• fruit
  • citrus

• mandarin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Mirandan

Borrowed from Spanish mandarín.

mandarin

1. mandarin (fruit)

• Mirjejev, V. A., Usejinov, S. M. (2002) Ukrajinsʹko-krymsʹkotatarsʹkyj slovnyk ‎, Simferopol: Dolya, →ISBN

From Portuguese mandarim.

mandarin c (singular definite mandarinen, plural indefinite mandariner)

1. mandarin (Chinese Imperial bureaucrat)
2. mandarin orange, mandarin (a small, sweet citrus fruit)

mandarin n

1. Mandarin

• “mandarin” in Den Danske Ordbog

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”).

mandarin f (genitive singular mandarinar, plural mandarinir)

1. mandarin orange, mandarin (a small, sweet citrus fruit)

mandarin n (genitive singular mandarins)

1. Mandarin

• mandarinur

• IPA^(key): /mɑ̃.da.ʁɛ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

mandarin (feminine mandarine, masculine plural mandarins, feminine plural mandarines)

1. mandarin (of the former Chinese empire)

• diamant mandarin

• → Breton: mandarin
• → Greek: μανδαρίνος (mandarínos)

mandarin m (uncountable)

1. Mandarin (language)

• “mandarin”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

 mandarin on Hungarian Wikipedia

• IPA^(key):
• Hyphenation: man‧da‧rin
• Rhymes: -in

Internationalism mainly via German, originally from Portuguese mandarim, mandarij, from Malay menteri, manteri.

mandarin (countable and uncountable, plural mandarinok)

1. (historical) mandarin
2. Mandarin (language)

Internationalism mainly via German, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.

mandarin (plural mandarinok)

1. mandarin, mandarin orange (fruit and tree)

• (Chinese government bureaucrat): mandarin in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.
• (mandarin orange): mandarin in Géza Bárczi, László Országh, et al., editors, A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: →ISBN.

Indonesian Wikipedia has an article on:

mandarin

Wikipedia ^id

• IPA^(key):
• Hyphenation: man‧da‧rin

From Portuguese mandarim (“mandarin”), from Malay menteri (“minister”), from Sanskrit मन्त्री (mantrī, “minister”). Doublet of manti, mantri, and menteri.

mandarin (plural mandarin-mandarin)

1. mandarin,
   1. (historical) a high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire
   2. Mandarin, the language of those official, which is the official language of China and Taiwan

From English mandarin (“mandarin orange”), from French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, probably formed as Etymology 1, above, from the yellow colour of the mandarins' costume.

mandarin (plural mandarin-mandarin)

1. mandarin orange

• “mandarin” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

Mandarin (språk)

Wikipedia ^no

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

Mandarin (embedsmann)

Wikipedia ^no

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

Mandarin (frukt)

Wikipedia ^no

From Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), Malay menteri, manteri, and Portuguese mandarim.

mandarin m (definite singular mandarinen, indefinite plural mandariner, definite plural mandarinene)

1. (uncountable) Mandarin (official language in China)
2. a mandarin ((formerly) a Chinese official; (now) a bureaucrat)
3. (fruit) a mandarin or mandarin orange

• “mandarin” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:

Mandarinspråk

Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:

mandarin

Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

From Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin, “minister, councillor”), Malay menteri, manteri, and Portuguese mandarim.

mandarin m (definite singular mandarinen, indefinite plural mandarinar, definite plural mandarinane)

1. (uncountable) Mandarin (official language in China)
2. a mandarin ((formerly) a Chinese official; (now) a bureaucrat)
3. (fruit) a mandarin or mandarin orange

• “mandarin” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from French mandarin.

mandarin m (plural mandarini)

1. mandarin

• IPA^(key): /mandǎriːn/
• Hyphenation: man‧da‧rin

mandàrīn m anim (Cyrillic spelling манда̀рӣн)

1. mandarin (Chinese Imperial bureaucrat)

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

mandarin

Wikipedia ^sv

Borrowed from Portuguese mandarim.

mandarin c or n

2. (common) mandarin, mandarin orange

   Mandariner är inte lika lättskalade som clementiner

   Mandarins aren't as easy to peel as clementines

3. (common, historical) mandarin; a high government bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire.
4. (uncountable, neuter) Mandarin

• mandarinsk

• apelsin
• citrus
• clementin
• satsuma

• mandarin in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• mandarin in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• mandarin in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)