different between bureaucracy vs rigmarole

English

Alternative forms

• bureaucratie
• bureau-ocracy (dated)
• burocracy (American)

Etymology

bureau +? -cracy, from French bureaucratie, coined by Jean Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay from bureau (“office”) + -cratie (“rule of”)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bj?????k??si/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bj?????k??si/

Noun

bureaucracy (countable and uncountable, plural bureaucracies)

1. Government by bureaus or their administrators or officers.
2. (business, organizational theory) A system of administration based upon organisation into bureaus, division of labour, a hierarchy of authority, etc., designed to dispose of a large body of work in a routine manner.

3. The body of officers and administrators, especially of a government.

4. Excessive red tape and routine in any administration, body or behaviour.

Derived terms

• bureaucrat
• bureaucratese
• bureaucratic
• bureaucratically

Translations

See also

• adhocracy

Further reading

• "bureaucracy" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 49.

English

Alternative forms

• rigamarole

Etymology

From ragman roll (“long list; catalogue”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????m????l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /????m??o?l/

Noun

rigmarole (countable and uncountable, plural rigmaroles)

1. A long and complicated procedure that seems tiresome or pointless.

2. Nonsense; confused and incoherent talk.
   • 1847, Thomas De Quincey, Secret Societies (published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine)

     Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ch VII:

     While you are planting the seed, he cries -- "Drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster.

   • 1880, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, sxn 4:

     His reply did not even allude to the subject, but was a rigmarole about the weather; as if he had been writing to an idiot, who did not require a rational answer to any question they had asked.

   • 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Valima Letters, ch XIX:

     In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and see his family in the bush.

   • 1910, A. E. W. Mason, At the Villa Rose, ch XVII:

     "Quite so," said Adèle comfortably. "Now let us be sensible and dine. We can amuse ourselves with mademoiselle's rigmaroles afterwards."

   • 1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, ch 1:

     He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and then started on the queerest rigmarole.

Translations

Adjective

rigmarole

1. Prolix; tedious.

Further reading

• “rigmarole”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.