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public servant:
(also “civil servant“; plural: ‘public servants‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ in “public” is said with a ‘k’ sound as in “king”)
a person elected or appointed by the government to help/assist the general public;
a government employee, not including the army or army personnel;
e.g.
A police officer is a public servant.
{Note 1: The recruiting or appointing the employees in the government offices on the basis of competitive examinations is called ‘civil service’ or ‘public service’, and those employees/officers appointed in this way are called ‘civil servants’ or ‘public servants’. In this context, the word ‘servant’ is not necessarily a worker who does simple jobs, such as cleaning, carrying things, etc. for a person or in a home or a business though there may be some ‘civil service’ jobs in which employees have to do these things. Some of the offices/departments of civil servants are: administrative offices, police department, postal department, electricity department, municipal department, water supply department, health department — hospitals run by the government, education department, etc.}
{NOTE 2: It is to be noted that the departments that fall under the ‘civil service’ or ‘public service’ differ from country to country, i.e. not all countries have the same system of ‘civil service’. In addition, some authorities opinion that ‘public servant’ usually refers to a politician or a citizen that is elected to a position that has something to do with the service for the public, and ‘civil servant’ is an employee on a regular salary who works for the public in a government office or agency.}
[Return to “servant“. Return to “civil servant“.]
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