Other forms: embassies
An embassy is your country's official house inside a foreign country. The British embassy, storm the embassy, apply at the embassy.
Its premises are inviolable under the Vienna Convention — the host state's police may not enter without permission, which is what makes asylum inside one possible. It sits in the capital, where a consulate may be in other cities. Note ambassador, from the same word for an errand.
1nounembassyA country's official house inside a foreign country.
“If you lose your passport abroad, contact your country's embassy.”
embassy is a diplomatic mission.
Old French ambascee comes from a word for a mission or errand, from a Germanic root meaning a servant. Ambassador comes from the same errand.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ent-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂m̥bʰi-h₂eǵ- — drive around
Proto-Celtic
*ambaxtos — servant
cel-gau
ambaxtos — dependant, vassal
Proto-Germanic
*ambahtiją — service
Latin
ambactia — service rendered
Old Occitan
ambaissada — embassy
roa-oit
ambasciata
Old French
ambascee
Middle French
ambassee — mission, embassy
English, today
embassy
Built from
Modern variant of obsolete ambassy, from Middle French ambassee (“mission, embassy”), from Old French ambascee (also enbassee (“message for a high official, official mission”)) from roa-oit ambasciata, from Old Occitan ambaissada (“embassy”), derived from ambaissa (“message”), from Latin ambactia (“service rendered”) (attested also as ambascia, from Proto-Germanic ambahtiją (“service”), ambahtaz (“follower, servant”), from cel-gau ambaxtos (“dependant, vassal”) literally “one who is sent around”, from Proto-Celtic ambaxtos (“servant”), from Proto-Indo-European h₂m̥bʰi-h₂eǵ- (“drive around”); compare Latin ambactus, Old Irish amus, amsach (“mercenary, servant”), Welsh amaeth (“tenant farm”)). a doublet of ambassade.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA