Definition of "official"

official

/əˈfɪʃəl/

adjective
comparative more official, superlative most official
1. Of or pertaining to an office or public trust.
2. Derived from the proper office or officer, or from the proper authority; made or communicated by virtue of authority
3. Approved by authority; authorized.
  1. (Of a statement) Dubious but recognized by authorities as truth and/or canon.
4. (pharmaceutical) Sanctioned by the pharmacopoeia; appointed to be used in medicine; officinal.
5. Discharging an office or function.
  Quotations
  the stomach and other parts official unto nutrition
  1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […]
6. Relating to an office; especially, to a subordinate executive officer or attendant.
7. Relating to an ecclesiastical judge appointed by a bishop, chapter, archdeacon, etc., with charge of the spiritual jurisdiction.
8. (informal) True, real, beyond doubt.
9. (pharmacology) Listed in a national pharmacopeia.
noun
plural officials
1. An office holder, a person holding an official position in government, sports, or other organization.
  Quotations
  ...officials with their prehensile bottoms...
  1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. III
  If the takeover is approved, Comcast would control 20 of the top 25 cable markets […] Antitrust officials will need to consider Comcast’s status as a monopsony (a buyer with disproportionate power), when it comes to negotiations with programmers, whose channels it pays to carry.
  2014 March 15, “Turn it off”, in The Economist, volume 410, number 8878