Word.ws English Dictionary

office politics

office politics noun: actions and behavior that are employed to gain or protect status or resources within an organization.

Noun

office politics (uncountable)

  1. (derogatory) actions and behavior that are employed to gain or protect status or resources within an organization
    • As a practical matter, however, you have no more chance of escaping office politics than of inheriting Fort Knox.1955 December, “How to play office politics”, in Kiplinger's Personal Finance, volume 9, number 12, Kiplinger Washington Editors, →ISSN, page 16
    • Office politics, like regular politics, is the art of who gets what, when, and how. While some denigrate the practice of office politics, it nevertheless is part of organizational life. It is the basis for much of the interpersonal interactivity we engage in on the job.1994, Gilbert W. Fairholm, Leadership and the Culture of Trust, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 73

Questions about office politics

What does office politics mean?
Office politics means actions and behavior that are employed to gain or protect status or resources within an organization.
What part of speech is office politics?
Office politics is a noun.

Words near office politics in the dictionary

  1. office mate
  2. office mates
  3. office of ease
  4. office party
  5. office plankton
  6. office politics
  7. office pool
  8. office suite
  9. office suites
  10. office up
  11. office wall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: office politics (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:

Cite this entry: “office politics.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/office_politics. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.