mandarin

A member of any of the nine ranks of high public officials in the Chinese Empire.

A high government official or bureaucrat.

A member of an elite group, especially a person having influence or high status in intellectual or cultural circles.

A mandarin orange.

Of, relating to, or resembling a mandarin.

Marked by elaborate and refined language or literary style.

In dyeing, to give an orange-color to, as silk or other stuffs made of animal fiber, not by means of a solution of coloring matter, but by the action of dilute nitric acid. The orange-color is produced by a partial decomposition of the surface of the fiber by the acid.

Any Chinese official, civil or military, who wears a. button. (See button, 3.) The Chinese equivalent is kwan, which means simply ‘public servant.’

[capitalized] The form of Chinese spoken (with slight variations) in the northern, central, and western provinces of China, as well as Manchuria, and by officials and educated persons all over the empire, as distinguished from the local dialects spoken chiefly in the southern provinces, and form the book-language, which appeals only to the eye.

in ornithology, the mandarin duck (which see, under duck).