From Middle English departement, from Middle French département.

• (RP) IPA: /dɪˈpɑːtm(ə)nt/
• (America) IPA: /dɪˈpɑɹtmənt/

department (plural departments)

1. A part, portion, or subdivision.
2. A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like.

   Technical things are not his department; he's a people person.

   • 1856 December, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC ↗:

     superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature

3. A specified aspect or quality.

   The 2012 Boston Marathon was outstanding in the temperature department; runners endured temperatures of no less than 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. A subdivision of an organization.
   1. (often, in proper names) One of the principal divisions of executive government

      the Treasury Department; the Department of Agriculture; police department

   2. (in a university) One of the divisions of instructions

      the physics department; the history department; the math department

5. A territorial division; a district; especially, in France, one of the districts into which the country is divided for governmental purposes, similar to a county in the UK and in the USA. France is composed of 101 départements organized in 18 régions, each department is divided into arrondissements, in turn divided into cantons.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to the 1715-99, Penguin, published 2003, page 427:

     The departments were the bricks from which the edifice of the nation was to be constructed.

6. (historical) A military subdivision of a country

   the Department of the Potomac

7. (obsolete) Act of departing; departure.
   • 1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC ↗, II. part, page 104 ↗:

     For though Contraria iuxta ſe poſita magis illuceſcunt [opposites placed next to each other shine more brightly] (by an olde Rule) yet it hath beene ſubtilly, and indeede truely noted that our Sight, is not vvell contented, vvith thoſe ſudden departments, from one extreame to another; Therefore let them haue, rather a Duskiſh Tincture, then an abſolute blacke.

• (distinct course) province, specialty
• (division of executive government) ministry

• Portuguese: departamento
• Russian: отде́л
• Spanish: sección

• French: (government) ministère
• German: Abteilung
• Italian: (government or university) dipartimento, (university) facoltà, (factory, office, shop, etc.) reparto
• Portuguese: departamento, setor
• Russian: отде́л
• Spanish: departamento

• French: département
• Italian: dipartimento
• Portuguese: departamento
• Russian: департа́мент
• Spanish: departamento