camarilla
/ˌkaməˈrɪl(j)ə
/noun derogatory
A small group of people, especially a group of advisers to a ruler or politician, with a shared purpose: a military camarilla that has lost any sense of political reality...
- They would never have confided such a mission to someone who spends his free time suing film stars and having himself idolised by a camarilla of cameramen.
- This latest scheme to concoct a pretext for war is a devastating self-exposure of the war camarilla.
- Was their eight-year struggle - which saw hundreds of lives lost and even more placed in peril - a justifiable good, or the wanton acts of a criminal camarilla?
Origin
Mid 19th century: from Spanish, diminutive of camara 'chamber'.