How to Use officious in a Sentence

officious

adjective
  • To her right sat a panel of officious-looking men at a desk equipped with buzzers.
    — Lorraine Ali, latimes.com, 7 June 2018
  • As such Miklovic brings an august presence, officious and ready to ensure the integrity of the brand.
    — Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com, 14 May 2018
  • While at first officious, Kate is, at heart, struggling with grief and using the choir as a coping mechanism.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 20 May 2020
  • Troops could be held up by officious passport-checkers and stubborn railway companies.
    — James Hohmann, Washington Post, 25 June 2018
  • The officiating crew was, well, pretty officious, whistling three penalties on each team.
    — Mark Whicker, Orange County Register, 22 June 2017
  • Her Southern accent is slightly clipped and officious, the type of drawl that’s a stamp of a suburban upbringing.
    — Alex Morris, Rolling Stone, 19 Mar. 2026
  • Many are proxies in the audience’s war with Matt, the kind of officious know-it-all whom people generally cross the street to avoid.
    — John Anderson, WSJ, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Domhnall Gleeson is off in his own mad farce as officious snarlfart General Hux, who gets the best line in the film.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 18 Dec. 2019
  • Lee will play Maya, the officious Chief of Staff for the Governor of Oklahoma.
    — Denise Petski, Deadline, 18 May 2026
  • Nevarro’s cantina is now a school being run by a female protocol droid who sounds just as officious as C-3PO.
    — Lauren Morgan, EW.com, 20 Nov. 2020
  • The former is the nerdier, more officious type in his bow tie and sport coat, the latter more rakish, a one-time rabble rouser who’s just happy to have something interesting to do.
    — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 28 Aug. 2025
  • Often in their line of fire is Ted, whom McLaughlin makes the most officious but also the most sympathetic of the hapless sandwich artists.
    — David L. Coddon, sandiegouniontribune.com, 24 Sep. 2017
  • Showerman is the least effective actor in the bunch, affecting a stentorian voice and officious manner that come across as parodic.
    — Donna Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, 23 Oct. 2019
  • In that bright, smug milieu, Ellen is trapped and watched—by the nosy neighbor, the officious postman, even the cute but insistent little boy who keeps dropping by with his toy TV and six-shooters.
    — Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2020
  • Having temporarily exhausted his supply of mad-lib right-wing buzzwords, Brooks transitions to officious virtue-signaling.
    — Jay Willis, GQ, 9 Mar. 2018
  • In the first scene, rather than shaving his officious captain, as indicated in the libretto, Wozzeck here is operating a small movie camera that projects cartoonish images of people on a small screen.
    — New York Times, 29 Dec. 2019
  • Sheryl McCallum has delicious timing as the officious black principal, who’s not without her own awkward boundary breaches.
    — Lisa Kennedy, The Know, 22 July 2019
  • Three years after the Mayflower storm, Tanner stands behind a protective wall of clear Lexan paneling, reading from a clipboard in the officious monotone of a man about dull work.
    — Brantley Hargrove, Popular Mechanics, 3 Aug. 2017
  • In one tableau, two naked cave women and an anthropomorphically officious vulture hunch over the edge of their pedestal as if contemplating the inevitability of death as exemplified by some unseen carcass.
    — Holland Cotter, Roberta Smith, Will Heinrich and Jason Farago, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017
  • This production simply turned him into a jerky, power-hungry, #MeToo-type white guy, and Cangelosi went to town playing up the character’s officious buffoonery, singing strongly all the while.
    — Anne Midgette, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2019
  • Likewise, the show’s depiction of a strain of officious bureaucracy that uses an ostentatious form of well-meaning solicitude to mask various forms of self-serving malice occasionally strikes home.
    — Jacob Bacharach, The New Republic, 3 Apr. 2020
  • Fast & Furious is notable for adding the character Gisele (Gal Gadot) and smaller players like Shea Whigham's officious Stasiak.
    — Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 18 Aug. 2025
  • Making this pronouncement is officious Lord Nooth, the governor of the area's spiffy bronze age town, who's played by Hiddleston like a foppish, money-hungry Roman provincial functionary with a truly eccentric accent.
    — Kenneth Turan, latimes.com, 15 Feb. 2018
  • Most figures of authority, including police officers, the military, and disease control workers, typically appear officious, apathetic and lacking in empathy.
    — Jeremy Hsu, Discover Magazine, 30 June 2015
  • Witherspoon’s Elena is almost indistinguishable from her officious, perfectionist Big Little Lies character.
    — Judy Berman, Time, 11 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'officious.' 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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