Department Meaning
/dɪˈpɑːtm(ə)nt/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA part, portion, or subdivision.
nounA distinct course of life, action, study, or the like.
Sentence Examples
Please go to the Surgery Department.
I will not be dictated to by some idiot in the personnel department.
The department is responsible for all financial planning.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
She visited the human resources ____ to submit her new employee paperwork.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please go to the Surgery ____.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English departement (“ceasing, end”), from Middle French département. Later senses borrowed from Modern French département. Doublet of département.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Flair and invention were very much at a premium, suffocated by the relentless pace and often fractious nature of proceedings. The absence of James Morrison from the centre of Scotland’s midfield, the West Brom man ruled out on the morning of the game by illness, had already diminished the creative capacity of the home side in that department."
— 2014 November 14, Stephen Halliday, “Scotland 1-0 Republic of Ireland: Maloney the hero”, in The Scotsman:
"superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature"
— 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:
"While the Chiefs superstar trails legendary quarterback Tom Brady in the Super Bowl wins department – the former Patriot and Tampa Bay Buccaneer has seven to Mahomes’ three – the chatter will only get louder and louder as to whether or not the 2023 Super Bowl MVP is the greatest of all time or not as he continues his career."
— 2024 February 12, Ben Morse and Steve Almasy, “Kansas City Chiefs defeat San Francisco 49ers in OT in Super Bowl LVIII, become first back-to-back NFL champions in 19 years”, in CNN.com:
"The departments were the bricks from which the edifice of the nation was to be constructed."
— 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to the 1715-99, Penguin, published 2003, page 427:
"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."
— 1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC, II. part, page 104:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She visited the human resources ____ to submit her new employee paperwork.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please go to the Surgery ____.