Bureaucratic means weighed down by official rules and paperwork. Three forms where one would do.
It is nearly always a criticism, and bureaucratic delay, bureaucratic obstacles and a bureaucratic nightmare are all standard complaints. Sociology uses bureaucracy neutrally for any rule-based organisation, and Max Weber argued it was the most efficient form available, which sounds absurd from inside a queue. The person is a bureaucrat and the noun is bureaucracy, which means both the system and the excess of it.
1adjectivebureaucraticBurdened with excessive official procedure and paperwork.
“The process is slow and hopelessly bureaucratic.”
French
bureaucratique
English, today
bureaucratic
Built from
Borrowed from French bureaucratique. French bureaucratique, from bureaucrate (“bureaucrat”) or bureaucratie (“bureaucracy”) + -ique (“-ic”), equivalent to bureaucrat + -ic or bureau + -cratic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA