官僚
guānliáo · HSK 7
bureaucrat
🏛️📋 官 = government official + 僚 = colleagues; together a pack of paper-pushing officials
官 means official or government post; 僚 means fellow officials or colleagues. Stack them and you get the whole class of career officials, plus the red-tape system they run.
官 — roof 宀 + mound/many 㠯
Originally a pictograph showing a building (roof 宀) over stacked mounds or seats (㠯), depicting an official residence or government office. The meaning extended from the building itself to the officials who worked there, and then broadly to 'official' or 'government.'