DEPARTMENT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Department

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/dɪpˈɑrtmənt/ Listen

noun

Department n.

Act of departing; departure. (Obs.) "Sudden departments from one extreme to another."

A part, portion, or subdivision.

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."

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 instruction; as, the medical department; the department of physics.

A territorial division; a district; esp., in France, one of the districts composed of several arrondissements into which the country is divided for governmental purposes; as, the Department of the Loire.

A military subdivision of a country; as, the Department of the Potomac.

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Etymology of 'Department'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Department" Quotes from Famous Books

... enterprise, Mrs. Fry is the peer of Howard. Who, among men, have been found to excel the world-honored Florence Nightingale in intelligent arrangements and administrative talent, as displayed in her management of the important department to which she devoted herself, and where her courage, promptitude, and sound judgment were as conspicuous ...

— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster

... can never think of disinfecting houses with sulphurous acid, as the peasants often have but a single room, in which the beds of the entire family are congregated. Every one knows that the agglomerations that compose the same department are often distant from each other and the chief town by from two to three miles or more. This is usually the case in the departments of Vienne, Haute Vienne, Indre, etc. To find a disinfecting place in the chief town of the department is still difficult, and to find one in each of the hamlets is ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... movement, Garrison had some personal experiences of a distressing nature. One of these was the case of his quondam friend and partner in the publication of the Liberator, Isaac Knapp. He, poor fellow, was no longer the publisher of the paper. His wretched business management of his department tended to keep the Liberator in a state of chronic financial embarrassment. When the committee, who assumed charge of the finances of the paper, took hold of the problem, they determined to let Knapp go. He was paid $150 or $175 as a quid pro quo for his interest in ...

— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... those unhappy sufferers to centre in this poor windbag their hopes for a better future. His portrait was engraved in copper-plate, and below it was written the quatrain of Nostradamus. M. d'Argenson,[2764] who was at the head of the police department, had these portraits seized. They were suppressed, so says the Gazette d'Amsterdam, on account of the last line of the quatrain written beneath the portrait, the line which runs: En delivrant un grand peuple d'impos. Such an expression was hardly ...

— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... Element. There is an artistic element in literature upon which the value of any work largely depends. There is art in the choice and marshaling of words. Furthermore, every department of literature—history, poetry, fiction—has a separate and definite purpose. In the successful realization of this purpose each species or form of literature must wisely choose its means. This conscious and intelligent ...

— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter

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