Word.ws English Dictionary

by committee

by committee adverb: through the collaborative efforts of multiple contributors, as a team or committee assigned to accomplish a goal; especially as known for protracted proceedings, a lack of responsiveness, or undesired results.

Adverb

by committee

  1. Through the collaborative efforts of multiple contributors, as a team or committee assigned to accomplish a goal; especially as known for protracted proceedings, a lack of responsiveness, or undesired results.
  2. (figuratively, humorous, sometimes) With any of the results cynically attributed to committee projects, e.g. unnecessary complexity, inconsistency, logical flaws, lack of a unifying vision, banality, lack of style or character, etc.
    • A camel is a horse designed by committee.
    • Writing workshops result in poetry by committee.

Questions about by committee

What does by committee mean?
By committee means through the collaborative efforts of multiple contributors, as a team or committee assigned to accomplish a goal; especially as known for protracted proceedings, a lack of responsiveness, or undesired results.
What part of speech is by committee?
By committee is an adverb.

Words near by committee in the dictionary

  1. by chalks
  2. by chance
  3. by Christmas
  4. by cock
  5. by cock and pie
  6. by committee
  7. by common consent
  8. by comparison
  9. by contrast
  10. by crumbs
  11. by crums

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by committee (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-by committee.wav.

Cite this entry: “by committee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/by_committee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.