pencil pusher

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pencil pusher

n. Derogatory

One whose work involves much routine writing or paperwork.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pen′cil push`er

Informal. a person, as a bookkeeper or clerk, whose job involves much paperwork.

[1880–85, Amer.]

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Noun

pencil pusher - a clerk who does boring paperwork

penpusher

clerk - an employee who performs clerical work (e.g., keeps records or accounts)

Translations

Sesselfurzer

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References in periodicals archive ?

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Amusingly, they are interrupted by the arrival of civil servant pencil pusher Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott).

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Eichmann was dull-witted, a pencil pusher: It was ridiculous to cast an efficient bureaucrat as arch-villain in so large a drama.

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Procurement guy doesn't usually think about that little nugget, yet some pencil pusher somewhere in your organization is laying into somebody in operations about kVA.

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Examples include shrink for psychiatrist; pencil pusher for superbly skilled print-media communicator.

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COPE spent a half-million private dollars on a top-to-bottom investigation of the system--counting every pencil pusher, poking every paint chip, and interviewing more than 1,000 employees.

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As such, the manager is a hands-on merchant, as opposed to a backroom pencil pusher. There's also the open-door policy, which for store manager RoxAnn Parmantier means, "I feel free to call Newman and say I have a problem with an employee or something.

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Amusingly, they're interrupted by the arrival of civil-servant pencil pusher Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott).