civil service

1. 1.

   government workers; usually hired on the basis of competitive examinations

   Broadergovernment officials

   NarrowerWhitehall

   Part ofbureaucracy

Questions about civil service

What does civil service mean?

civil service means "government workers; usually hired on the basis of competitive examinations".

Is civil service a common word?

civil service is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.