state department

1. 1.

   the federal department in the United States that sets and maintains foreign policies

   “the Department of State was created in 1789”

   SynonymsDepartment of StateUnited States Department of StateStateDoS

   Broaderexecutive department

   NarrowerFoggy Bottom

   PartsBureau of Diplomatic SecurityForeign ServiceBureau of Intelligence and Research
2. 2.

   a department of government in one of the 50 states

   Broadergovernment department

   United States

Questions about state department

What does state department mean?

state department means "the federal department in the United States that sets and maintains foreign policies". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for state department?

Close synonyms include Department of State, United States Department of State, State, DoS. 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 state department a common word?

state department 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.