department
Etymology

From Middle English departement, from Middle French département.

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

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.
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