Other forms: departments
A department is one division of a larger organisation, with its own work and usually its own head. The sales department, the history department, the emergency department.
In government, a Department is a ministry — the Department for Education, the Department of Justice — and the capital letter marks it as a name. In a shop, departments are the sections, which is where department store comes from. There is a useful informal use: something being not my department means it is not my responsibility, said to deflect. Note the abbreviation dept., and that department takes of in American names and for in many British ones.
1noundepartmentOne division of an organisation.
“She moved to the finance department last year.”
2nounbranchA branch of national government.
“The Department of Health issued new guidance.”
3nounsectionA section of a large shop.
“Kitchenware is on the third floor, next to the bedding department.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
department is a division of an organisation.
French département came from départir, to divide up — the same root as depart, which originally meant to separate rather than to leave. A department is a part something was divided into, and the French administrative départements are the same word doing the same job.
French
département
Middle French
département
Middle English
departement — ceasing, end
English, today
department
From Middle English departement (“ceasing, end”), from Middle French département. Later senses borrowed from Modern French département. a doublet of département.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA