the.com/directorate
A board smart enough to avoid blame and plural enough to share it.
means A group of directors acting together as the governing or managing body of an organization, or the office/department they run.
from Built from 'director' (from Latin dirigere, 'to guide straight, to steer') plus the abstract-noun suffix '-ate,' which marks an office, rank, or body of officials — the same ending seen in 'consulate' or 'electorate.' The word settled into English in the 1700s–1800s as institutions needed a tidy term for 'the directors, considered as one body' rather than a single person in charge.
- origin
- from director, dressed up in Latin for gravitas
- function
- turns one person's decision into nobody's fault
- usage
- common in bureaucracies, EU bodies, and spy agencies
- irony
- sounds powerful, often just means committee