THE FIRST WORD

camarilla

PRONUNCIATION:

(kam-uh-RIL-uh, Spanish: kah-mah-REE-yah) 

MEANING:

noun: A group of confidential scheming advisers.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Spanish, diminutive of cámara (chamber), from Latin camera (room), from Greek kamara (an object with an arched cover). Earliest documented use: 1839.

USAGE:

"In China ... successions to a bureaucratic collective leadership are managed by a tiny camarilla in a self-declared one-party state."
Simon Sebag Montefiore; In Russia, Power Has No Heirs; The New York Times; Jan 11, 2009.