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departmental

UK/dɪpɑːtˈmɛntəl/US/dɪpɑɹtˈmɛntəl/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,992 of 15,258leans written

Departmental means belonging to one department. A departmental meeting, departmental budget, departmental policy.

It marks the boundary of a decision: a departmental matter is one that need not go higher, which is either efficient or a way of keeping something quiet. In universities and civil services it is everyday language — departmental head, departmental review. Note interdepartmental, meaning between departments, which is where most large organisations do their arguing.

Definitions of departmental

  1. 1adjectivedepartmentalBelonging to one department.B2+

    “The departmental budget covers only the science teachers' needs.”

departmental is a quality of belonging to a department.

Where it comes from

French départemental comes from département, from départir, to divide. Depart, part and party come from the same dividing.

  1. French

    départemental

  2. English, today

    departmental

Borrowed from French départemental. by surface analysis, department + -al. a doublet of départemental.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

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departmental in the wild

  • For this reason, such elections were known in France as "cantonal elections", until 2015 when their name was changed to "departmental elections" to match the departmental councils' name.

    Cantons of France

  • In France, the President of the Departmental Council is the locally elected head of the departmental council, the assembly governing a department in France.

    List of presidents of departmental councils (France)

  • The position is elected by the departmental councillors from among their number.

    List of presidents of departmental councils (France)

  • Underneath that are many more regional and departmental leagues and divisions.

    French football league system

  • The 900 series classes were reserved for multiple units in departmental stock, most of which were converted from old passenger units.

    List of British Rail departmental multiple unit classes

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • department