special branch

1. 1.

   a government police department dealing with political security

   Broadergovernment department

   United Kingdom

Questions about special branch

What does special branch mean?

special branch means "a government police department dealing with political security".

Is special branch a common word?

special branch is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.