Other forms: ambassadors
An ambassador is a country's highest representative living in another country. The French ambassador, appoint an ambassador, recall the ambassador.
Recalling one is a formal step short of breaking relations and is read exactly that way. An ambassador's residence and embassy are inviolable under the Vienna Convention. The word is now used for brand ambassadors too, which is a long way from diplomacy. Note that the root is a Germanic word for a servant on an errand.
1nounambassadorA country's highest representative living in another country.
“The new ambassador presented her papers to the king at the palace.”
ambassador is a representative.
Old Occitan ambaisador comes from a word for a mission or errand, from a Germanic root meaning a servant. Embassy comes from the same errand.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂eǵ-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂m̥bʰi-h₂eǵ- — drive around
Proto-Celtic
*ambaxtos
cel-gau
ambaxtos
Proto-Germanic
*ambahtaz — servant
Old Occitan
ambaisador — ambassador
roa-oit
ambassadore
Anglo-Norman
ambassadeur
Middle English
ambassadore
English, today
ambassador
Built from
From Middle English ambassadore, from Anglo-Norman ambassadeur, from roa-oit ambassadore, from Old Occitan ambaisador (“ambassador”), derivative of ambaissa (“service, mission, errand”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic ambahtaz (“servant”), from cel-gau ambaxtos, from Proto-Celtic ambaxtos, from Proto-Indo-European h₂m̥bʰi-h₂eǵ- (“drive around”), from h₂m̥bʰi- (“around”) + h₂eǵ- (“to drive”). Displaced native ǣrendraca.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA