secretary of state

Questions about secretary of state

What does secretary of state mean?

secretary of state means "the person who holds the secretaryship of the Department of State". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for secretary of state?

Close synonyms include foreign minister. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is secretary of state a common word?

secretary of state is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.