cronyism
C1CEFR level
60/100Rarity: rare
NeutralRegister
General noun
The appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority regardless of merit.
The contracts were awarded through sheer cronyism to the minister's old college friends.
Business noun
Appointing friends and allies to posts rather than the best candidates.
The board is riddled with cronyism; every seat went to a golfing buddy.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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