This week’s theme
Words borrowed from other languages

This week’s words
ikigai
chaebol
cosh
ombudsman
toco

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(OM-buhdz/boodz-muhn/man)

MEANING:

noun: An official who investigates complaints by individuals against an organization.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Swedish ombudsman (legal representative), from Old Norse umbodhsmadhr (deputy). Earliest documented use: 1824.

NOTES:

An ombudsman helps an individual with a grievance against a large organization where otherwise it’d be easy to become lost in bureaucracy, opaque rules, unresponsive management, etc. For example, an ombudsman may hear and investigate complaints by a citizen against a government, by a reader against a newspaper, an employee against an employer, a student against a university, and so on.

USAGE:

“The dandy man stormed off, sulking and promising to take the matter to an ombudsman of some kind.”
Maurice Gray; Tannadee; Troubador; 2020.

See more usage examples of ombudsman in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: