An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of their superior and/or employer, public or legally private). An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election. Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited. A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent. Something "official" refers to something endowed with governmental or other authoritative recognition or mandate, as in official language, official gazette, or official scorer. Etymology The word official as a noun has been recorded since the Middle English period, first seen in 1314. It comes from the Old French (12th century), from the Latin ("attendant to a magistrate, government official"), the noun use of the original adjective ("of or belonging to duty, service, or office") from ("office"). The meaning "person in charge of some public work or duty" was first recorded in 1555. The adjective is first attested in English in 1533 via the Old French . The informal term officialese, the jargon of "officialdom", was first recorded in 1884. Roman antiquity An (plural ) was the official term (somewhat comparable to a modern civil servant) for any member of the (staff) of a high dignitary such as a governor. Ecclesiastical judiciary In canon law, the word or its Latin original is used absolutely as the legal title of a diocesan bishop's judicial vicar who shares the bishop's ordinary judicial power over the diocese and presides over the diocesan ecclesiastical court. The 1983 Code of Canon Law gives precedence to the title judicial vicar, rather than that of (canon 1420). The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches uses only the title judicial vicar (canon 191). In German, the related noun was also used for an official bureau in a diocese that did much of its administration, comprising the vicariate-general, an adjoined secretariat, a registry office and a chancery. In Catholicism, the vicar-general was originally called the "official" (). The title of official principal, together with that of vicar-general, has in Anglicanism been merged in that of diocesan chancellor of a diocese. Sports In sports, the term