In imperial China, a public official drawn from the ranks of the lesser officeholders who had achieved success in the Chinese examination system .
The word comes from the Portuguese version of the Malay term for a minister of state. It has come to mean a pedantic official, a bureaucrat, or a person of position and influence (and usually a traditionalist or reactionary mindset) in intellectual or literary circles. The Mandarin language is the most widely spoken of the Chinese languages .