ombudsman
/ˈɒmbʊdzmən
/noun (plural ombudsmen)
1An official appointed to investigate individuals' complaints against a company or organization, especially a public authority.These failures in human communication feature in many of the complaints investigated by the ombudsman's office....
- To tackle the issue, Wang requested that the city government recruited more consumer ombudsmen to investigate such cases, noting that Taipei has only one consumer ombudsman, while Taipei County has three.
- Last year, the number of complaints to the pensions ombudsman increased by a third.
1.1 (the Ombudsman) British informal term for Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.He wrote to the Yacht Club, the Nelson City Council, the Ombudsman, the Minister for Local Government, the Prime Minister....
- 3.7.12 prevents a Councillor from voting on any question relating to an Ombudsman's Report in which he has been named and criticised.
- An Attorney-General representative denied this, pointing to safeguards in the legislation such as reporting to Parliament and oversight by an Ombudsman, The Age reports.
Origin
1950s: from Swedish, 'legal representative'.
There are not many words in English that come directly from Swedish, but this is one of them. In the 1950s we adopted the Swedish word for ‘legal representative’ as a term for an official appointed to investigate individual complaints against companies or the government, though the British Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration, as the office is formally known, dates from 1967.
Rhymes
- diseconomy
- disembark
- disembarkation
- disembarrass
- disembarrassment
- disembodied
- disembodiment
- disembody
- disembogue
- disemboguement
- disembowel
- disembowelment
- disembroil
- disempower
- disempowerment
- disenable
- disenchant
- disenchanted
- disenchanting
- disenchantingly
- disenchantment
- disencumber
- disendorse
- disendow
- disendowment