Department

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /dɪˈpɑː(ɹ)tmÉ™nt/

Origin

From French département.

Full definition of department

Noun

1. A part, portion, or subdivision.
2. A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like; appointed sphere or walk; province.
• Superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. Thomas Babington Macaulay.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. A military subdivision of a country; as, the Department of the Potomac.
6. (obsolete) Act of departing; departure.
• Sudden departments from one extreme to another. Wotton.

Derived terms

• departmental
• departmentally