How to Use bureaucratic in a Sentence

bureaucratic

adjective
  • And to, of course, keep them snarled in bureaucratic red tape.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 7 Aug. 2022
  • The case wasn’t a bureaucratic fluke.
    — Stephen Johnson, Big Think, 31 Mar. 2026
  • While that phrase may sound bureaucratic.
    — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 24 Feb. 2026
  • And yet the heavy hand of the bureaucratic status quo had to make its presence known.
    — Deborah Padgett, CNN, 11 Apr. 2022
  • Seth knows bureaucratic union rules and gory details about vampires but can’t shoot a gun.
    — Rodney Ho, ajc, 9 Aug. 2022
  • Both red states and blue states are accused in this bureaucratic nightmare.
    — Terry Savage, Chicago Tribune, 14 Aug. 2023
  • The proof of the bureaucratic pudding will be in the eating.
    — The Editorial Board, Daily News, 23 Apr. 2026
  • Who would sit through days of bureaucratic meetings just to observe?
    — Lisa Song, ProPublica, 10 May 2024
  • There is so much that could go wrong before any of this goes right — the budgets and unions and bureaucratic red tape.
    — Ryan Kost, San Francisco Chronicle, 16 Aug. 2020
  • Don’t test bureaucratic matters; just deal with them and press forward.
    — Eugenia Last, The Mercury News, 26 Mar. 2024
  • But if the same old bureaucratic hurdles stand in the way of access to those programs, no one wins.
    — Andrew Heath, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2024
  • But any crimes involved are about bureaucratic sloth, and how some of the women are treated.
    — John Anderson, WSJ, 7 Dec. 2023
  • The answer, as many locals are already too aware, is bureaucratic red tape.
    — Christopher Calton, Orange County Register, 16 Apr. 2024
  • But that would prove to be just the beginning of a bureaucratic nightmare to get soldiers on the scene.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 11 Jan. 2021
  • In short, bureaucratic hurdles got in the way, though there’s hope that at least some of the chargers will go online next year.
    — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Dec. 2023
  • The shortages that did occur were problems of bureaucratic red tape.
    — Aron Ravin, National Review, 17 Aug. 2021
  • Even then, the process took about 15 years of bureaucratic wrangling and court appeals.
    — Laura Wagner, Washington Post, 30 July 2024
  • But we are slowed by some of the same bureaucratic hurdles that the paranoid former regime installed.
    — Jan Egeland, CNN, 14 Apr. 2021
  • This was an utter lie, as German bureaucratic records show.
    — Sally Jenkins, The Atlantic, 27 Oct. 2025
  • The handshake deal kicks off a long bureaucratic process where the budget bills must be printed and then voted on.
    — Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News, 30 June 2026
  • While these might have been meant well, the result is a series of bureaucratic hurdles that raise costs and delays.
    — Shelley Stewart Iii, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
  • Shafi is in hiding now in Kabul and feels trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare.
    — Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward and Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN, 17 Aug. 2021
  • The act has become a slow moving bureaucratic money pit.
    — Vincent Turley, Hartford Courant, 21 Aug. 2025
  • Still, due to bureaucratic hurdles, the process could take between a few months to several years.
    — Sira Thierij, NPR, 26 Dec. 2024
  • This effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process must not prevail.
    — Todd Spangler, Variety, 28 May 2026
  • For months, that attack sat in a bureaucratic gray zone for the Purple Heart.
    — Steven Beynon, ABC News, 6 Feb. 2026
  • While the bureaucratic hurdles can be substantial, many migrants do make it through the process.
    — Anthony Izaguirre, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Staffers have described their days as a dark bureaucratic comedy.
    — Zach Helfand, New Yorker, 20 Apr. 2026
  • That process runs through three separate bureaucratic systems, each of which can cause years of delay.
    — Aaron Brynildson, The Conversation, 21 Apr. 2026
  • The numbers haven’t budged much, but Romansh now sits in a kind of bureaucratic stalemate.
    — Simon Akam, New Yorker, 1 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bureaucratic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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