ex officio
/ˌɛks əˈfɪʃioʊ/
ex officio adverb: by virtue of the office that originated it, or of the title held.
Adverb
ex officio (not comparable)
- By virtue of the office that originated it, or of the title held.
- The President of the Republic of France is, ex officio, also prince of the dyarchy called Andorra.
- That friend, […] added, with a smile, that he had more than once amused himself with the thought of a verbarian Attorney-General, authorized to bring informations ex officio against the writer or editor of any work in extensive circulation, who, after due notice issued, should persevere in misusing...1830, S[amuel] T[aylor] Coleridge, “Concerning the Right Idea of the Constitution”, in On the Constitution of the Church and State, according to the Idea of Each: […], London: Hurst, Chance, and Co....
- Synonyms:
- motu proprio, of one's own motion, sua sponte, suo motu
Adjective
ex officio (not comparable)
- By virtue of the office that originated it, or of the title held.
- Duties include […] sitting as ex-officio member of the Board of Directors and all Board committees.1979 April 14, “Lambda Seeks Exec. Director”, in Gay Community News, page 2
- Meanwhile, to Samsonov’s annoyance, Colonel Knox had arrived in Ostrolenka. Why, nobody knew—probably just to convey the goodwill of the British, who would not themselves be landing on the Continent for another six months. Samsonov disliked those artificial, ex officio European smiles at the best...1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 136
ex officio meaning in Tamil and Tagalog
ex officio in Tamil
- பதவிவழி
ex officio in Tagalog
- by virtue of an office or title
- sabilin
Examples of ex officio in a sentence
- In the South every negro preacher is ex officio a D.D., and is commonly addressed as Doctor.[1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, chapter 20, in The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC, footnote, page 138:
- Samsonov disliked those artificial, ex officio European smiles at the best of times, and this visitor would be a hindrance and a distraction just at present.1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 136:
Synonyms of ex officio
- motu proprio
- of one's own motion
- sua sponte
- suo motu
Origin of ex officio
From Latin ex officio (“by right of office”, literally “from the office”).
Words formed from ex officio
Questions about ex officio
- What does ex officio mean?
- Ex officio means by virtue of the office that originated it, or of the title held.
- What is ex officio in Tamil?
- Ex officio in Tamil is பதவிவழி. See Ex officio meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use ex officio in a sentence?
- In the South every negro preacher is ex officio a D.D., and is commonly addressed as Doctor.
- What part of speech is ex officio?
- Ex officio can be an adverb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce ex officio?
- Ex officio is pronounced /ˌɛks əˈfɪʃioʊ/.
Words near ex officio in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ex officio (page history and authors); ex officio (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: En-us-ex officio.oga.
Cite this entry: “ex officio.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ex_officio. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.