department

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /dɪˈpɑːt.mənt/, US /dɪˈpɑːrt.mənt/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English departement, borrowed from Middle French departement (“division, sharing out; departure”) (modern département),^[2][3][4] from departir (“to divide”),^[2][5][6] from Late Latin dēpartīre (“to divide”),^[3] from dē- (“from”) and partīre (“to part, divide”),^[3] from pars (“part, share”).^[3] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *pere- (“to grant, allot”).^[3] It is related to depart and part.^[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Departure, also death: about 1450,^[8][2] or about 1500 according to Etymonline;^[3] the SOED gives division or partition as its first, rare, sense.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The early senses, “departure” and “division, distribution”, are now obsolete.^[4][8] French département also came to mean a group of people,^[3][2] and English took from it the sense “separate division, a province of business assigned to someone”, recorded before 1735 in Johnson's dictionary.^[8][2][9] One of the branches of state or municipal administration is a department from 1769,^[8] and one of the administrative districts of France from 1792.^[8] Departmental is from 1791,^[2] and department store from 1887.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – departure; death (obsolete).^[8]
• 1677 – division, distribution (obsolete).^[8]
• before 1735 – a separate branch or province of work.^[8][2]
• 1769 – a branch of government.^[8]
• 1791 – departmental.^[2]
• 1792 – a French administrative district.^[8]
• 1887 – department store.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A distinct, usually specialized division of a large organization, such as a government, business, school or university.
2. One of the administrative districts of France.
3. (informal) An area of special skill or responsibility: that's not my department.

Word family

• departmental
• departmentally
• subdepartment
• interdepartmental
• department store
• fire department
• state department

Related words

• depart
• part
• departure
• partition
• particle

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster