officiële

Officiële is a Dutch adjective meaning "official," used to describe things that relate to an office, authority, or sanctioned status. It denotes that something is issued by, or recognized by, an authority such as a government, organization, or institution. The term is commonly used for documents, statements, languages, and roles that carry formal approval or legitimacy, for example officiële documenten (official documents), officiële verklaring (official statement), or officiële taal (official language).

Etymology and cognates: Officiële derives from het adjectief officieel with the suffix -e for inflection before a noun. The root form officieel corresponds to the English "official," and the word has cognates in many related languages, such as Duits offiziell and Frans officiel, all tracing back to Latin officialis.

Usage and grammar: Officiële is the attributive form used before a noun in standard Dutch, as in de officiële documenten or een officiële verklaring. The base form in many contexts is officieel, used in compound adjectives or when no noun follows. The adverbial sense of officially is also conveyed by officieel. The word is common in legal, governmental, and administrative contexts.

Related terms: The word is distinct from formel, which signals formality or etiquette rather than official status. The opposite is officieus (unofficial). In a broader sense, officiële emphasizes legitimacy and authorization, while formeler tends to highlight procedure or decorum, and officiel/official in other languages carries similar distinctions.

Overall, officiële is a core term for describing legitimacy, authorization, and formal status in Dutch, widely used across official discourse and everyday contexts.