Figurative Meaning
In modern English, mandarin is also used to refer to any (though usually a senior) civil servant, often in a satirical context, and particularly in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries.
Read more about this topic: Mandarin (bureaucrat)
Famous quotes containing the words figurative and/or meaning:
“Church neglect
And figurative use have pretty well
Reduced him to a shadow of himself.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The haiku lets meaning float; the aphorism pins it down.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)