ombudsman
pronunciation
How to pronounce ombudsman in British English:
UK [ˈɒmbʊdzmən]
How to pronounce ombudsman in American English:
US [ˈɑmbʊdzmən]
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- Noun:
- a government appointee who investigates complaints by private persons against the government
Word Origin
- ombudsman
- ombudsman: [20] The word ombudsman, denoting an ‘investigator of public complaints’, was introduced into English from Swedish, and was first used as a quasi-official term in the 1960s: New Zealand was the first Englishspeaking country to introduce such a post, in 1962, and Britain followed four years later. The Swedish word is a descendant of Old Norse umbothsmathr, literally ‘administration-man’; and umboth was originally a compound of um ‘about’ and both ‘command’ (a relative of English bid).=> bid
- ombudsman (n.)
- 1959, from Swedish ombudsman, literally "commission man" (specifically in reference to the office of justitieombudsmannen, which hears and investigates complaints by individuals against abuses of the state); cognate with Old Norse umboðsmaðr, from umboð "commission" (from um- "around," see ambi-, + boð "command," see bid (v.)) + maðr "man" (see man (n.)).
Example
- 1. Mr hazare wants to set up an anti-corruption ombudsman .
- 2. Russian human rights ombudsman vladimir lukin agrees that at some point in the future it will happen .
- 3. The hungarians faced sanctions over the independence of the central bank and the data ombudsman , and the compulsory retirement of judges .
- 4. Photo credit : afp . James miller , whose grandfather died in the bombing , holds the police ombudsman 's report at the the diamond centre in claudy .
- 5. Mr simon spent the weeks between the bagua clash and his fall from grace travelling around peru to deal with one disturbance after another : some 273 at the end of june , according to the human-rights ombudsman .