department
Etymology
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Etymology
From Middle English departement, from Middle French département.
Pronunciation Noundepartment (plural departments)
A part, portion, or subdivision. 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
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.
A subdivision of an organization. (often, in proper names) One of the principal divisions of executive government - the Treasury Department; the Department of Agriculture; police department
(in a university) One of the divisions of instructions - the physics department; the history department; the math department
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.
(historical) A military subdivision of a country - the Department of the Potomac
(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.
- 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
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
