department
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
From French département.
Pronunciation [edit]
Noun [edit]
department (plural departments)
- A part, portion, or subdivision.
- A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like; appointed sphere or walk; province.
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- Superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. Thomas Babington Macaulay.
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- Subdivision of business or official duty; especially, one of the principal divisions of executive government; as, the treasury department; the war department; also, in a university, one of the divisions of instructions; as, the medical department; the department of physics.
- A territorial division; a district; especially, in France, one of the districts composed of several arrondissements into which the country is divided for governmental purposes.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 427:
- The departments were the bricks from which the edifice of the nation was to be constructed.
- 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 427:
- A military subdivision of a country; as, the Department of the Potomac.
- (obsolete) Act of departing; departure.
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- Sudden departments from one extreme to another. Wotton.
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Translations [edit]
Part, portion, subdivision
Course of life, action, study, etc.
Subdivision of business
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Territorial division
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