officious
/əˈfɪʃəs/
officious adjective: obliging, attentive, eager to please.
Adjective
officious (comparative more officious, superlative most officious)
- Obliging, attentive, eager to please.
- Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious attention!1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 206
- ‘It is essential that the nation become accustomed to managing its own affairs, so that it will emerge from this state of infancy in which an anxious and officious government attempts to keep the people’.1998 [1807 December], Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, letter to Karl August von Hardenberg, in History of Political Thought, volume 19, Exeter: Imprint Academic, page 249
- Offensively intrusive or interfering in offering advice and services.
- The help tended to be officious, the rules, if heeded, restrictive, and the management meddlesome.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168
officious meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
officious in Urdu
- فضولی, مدد گار, مفت کا خادم, مطیع
officious in Bengali
- অনাহূতভাবে সাহায্যকারী, গায়ে পড়ে কাজ করা, অতিরিক্ত খবরদারি করা
officious in Malayalam
- അധികാരം ബലമായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന
officious in Kannada
- ಅಧಿಕಾರಬಲದ, ಅಧಿಕಾರದರ್ಪದ, ಅಧಿಕಾರಶಾಹಿಯ, ದಬ್ಬಾಳಿಕೆಯ, ಅಧಿಕಪ್ರಸಂಗಿಯಾದ, ಅಧಿಕಪ್ರಸಂಗಿತನದ
Forms of officious
| comparative | more officious |
|---|---|
| superlative | most officious |
Origin of officious
15th century, from Middle English offycyous, from Latin officiōsus (“kindly”), from officium (“service”).
Words formed from officious
Phrases with officious
Words that rhyme with officious
Questions about officious
- What does officious mean?
- Officious means obliging, attentive, eager to please.
- What is officious in Urdu?
- Officious in Urdu is فضولی, مدد گار, مفت کا خادم. See Officious meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is officious?
- Officious is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce officious?
- Officious is pronounced /əˈfɪʃəs/ (UK).
Words near officious in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: officious (page history and authors); officious (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); officious (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); officious (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); officious (Kannada 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-officious.wav.
Cite this entry: “officious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/officious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
