Unelected describes a person who holds power without any vote having put them there — nobody chose them, yet they decide things. Civil servants, judges, advisers, central bankers, appointed officials and monarchs are all unelected in this sense. The important thing is the tone. This word is almost always used to complain. When a newspaper writes 'unelected bureaucrats' or 'unelected officials', it is making an argument: these people should not have this much power over you, because you cannot vote them out. It is a political weapon, not a neutral label — you will see it far more often from people attacking an institution than from the institution itself. Grammatically it lives right in front of a noun: unelected officials, an unelected body, unelected advisers. Notice too that it does not automatically mean 'illegitimate'. Plenty of jobs are supposed to be unelected — judges are deliberately kept out of elections so they can decide cases without worrying about votes. So when you meet this word, the useful question is not 'is this true?' but 'what is the writer trying to make me feel?' Very often the answer is: suspicious.