It's the Word of the Day podcast for April 8th.
Today's word is aparachic, spelled A-P-P-A-R-A-T-C-H-I-K.
Aparachuk is a noun.
It's used disapprovingly to refer to a blindly devoted official follower or member of an organization,
such as a corporation or political party.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Deadline.
Played by what we do in the shadows, Matt Berry,
Chasbor is a faithful party, Aparachuk and staunch defender of his country's traditions.
The aparat in aparachik,
a term English speakers borrowed from Russian, essentially means party machine,
with machine referring to a highly organized political group under the leadership of a boss or small group of individuals.
Aparachik originally referred to someone functioning as a cog in the system of the Communist Party.
The term is not a flattering one,
and its negative connotations reflect the perception of some communists as obedient drones in the great party machine.
In current use, however,
a person doesn't have to be a member of the Communist Party to be called an apparatchik.
They just have to be someone who mindlessly follows orders in an organization or bureaucracy.
With your Word of the Day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.
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