jack-in-office
Britishnoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He was equally fine as Malvolio: a preening, stiff-gaited jack-in-office who, like all first-rate Malvolios, enlisted one's sympathy in his downfall.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 18, 2013
But last week Franz Josef Strauss was learning firsthand the full depth of West Germans' postwar distaste for jack-in-office arrogance.
From Time Magazine Archive
We can easily imagine the high-and-mighty jack-in-office he must have been in Adolph's time.
From Richard Wagner Composer of Operas by John F. Runciman
Just another example of pettish bureaucracy, the officiousness of the jack-in-office.
From Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore
The whole system teems with "wait-a-bit" thorns; and in such rare cases when difficulties do not exist, some jack-in-office is certain to arrive with the sole object and intention of inventing them.
From On the Heels of De Wet by Lionel James
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
