government official; public servant; civil servant
Dated term for a government official or civil servant. In modern Japanese, 公務員 (こうむいん) is the usual word; 官吏 carries a pre-war or formal legal tone.
Before the war, becoming a government official was a mark of the elite.
This law strictly prescribes the service discipline of public officials.
He passed the exam and became a government official.
My grandfather worked as a government official for many years.
There was an era when the emperor appointed government officials.
役人 is the everyday, sometimes slightly critical word for a government official, whereas 官吏 is an old, formal legal term for the same role.
公僕 stresses the idea of serving the public and is literary in tone, while 官吏 is a historical administrative title.
官吏 is a broader historical term for any civil servant, whereas 下吏 emphasizes the subordinate, petty rank within that class.
官吏 is an older, formal term for a government official focused on rank and duty, while 官憲 stresses the enforcement power of the authorities.
Borrowed from Literary Chinese 官吏, a collective or compound term for government officials and clerks. It was used in Japanese well before the modern administrative terminology of the Meiji period.