12Oct Monday, October 6, 2008 – Officious

Officious \uh-FISH-uhs\, adjective:

Marked by excessive eagerness in offering services or advice where they are neither requested nor needed; meddlesome.

Ian Holm plays a well-meaning but officious lawyer who tries to make the grieving families sue for damages.
— John Simon, “Minus Four”, National Review, February 9, 1998

The guy was an officious twerp, but Luke and Pete were vagrants, and a railroad employee had the right to throw them out.
— Ken Follett, Code to Zero

Why don’t you mind your own business, ma’am? roared Bounderby. “How dare you go and poke your officious nose into my family affairs?”
— Charles Dickens, Hard Times

Officious comes from Latin officiosus, obliging, dutiful, from officium, dutiful action, sense of duty, official employment, from opus, a work, labor + -ficere, combining form of facere, to do, to make. It is related to official, of or pertaining to an office or public trust.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for officious

OK, this just gave me a giggle fit. Something about ants filing paperwork and suffering inspections tickles me something fierce.