Word.ws English Dictionary

dept.

dept. is the abbreviation of department.

dept. is the abbreviation of deputy.

Meaning of department

Noun

department (plural departments)

  1. A part, portion, or subdivision.
  2. A distinct course of life, action, study, or the like.
    • Technical things are not his department; he's a people person.
    Synonyms:
    province, specialty
  3. A specified aspect or quality.
    • The 2012 Boston Marathon was outstanding in the temperature department; runners endured temperatures of no less than 88 degrees Fahrenheit.
  4. (often in proper names) One of the principal divisions of executive government
    • the Treasury Department; the Department of Agriculture; police department
    Synonyms:
    ministry
  5. One of the divisions of instructions
    • the physics department; the history department; the math department
  6. A territorial division; a district; especially, in France, one of the districts into which the country is divided for governmental purposes, similar to a county in the UK and in the USA. France is composed of 101 départements organized in 18 régions, each department is divided into arrondissements, in turn divided into cantons.
    • The departments were the bricks from which the edifice of the nation was to be constructed.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to the 1715-99, Penguin, published 2003, page 427

See all 8 meanings of department

Meaning of deputy

Noun

deputy (plural deputies)

  1. One appointed as the substitute of others, and empowered to act for them, in their name or their behalf; a substitute in office.
    • the deputy of a prince
  2. (historical) A person employed to install and remove props, brattices, etc. and to clear gas, for the safety of the miners.
  3. The name for a member of legislature in some countries.
    • The State Duma comprises 450 deputies.
    1. A member of the French National Assembly.
    2. (historical) A member of the French Chamber of Deputies, formerly called Corps Législatif.
    3. (Ireland, capitalized, often) A member of Dáil Éireann, or the title of a member of Dáil Éireann.
      • Eamon Ryan is a deputy in the Dáil.

See all 8 meanings of deputy

Questions about dept.

What is dept. the abbreviation of?
Dept. is the abbreviation of department.

Words near dept. in the dictionary

  1. depsidone
  2. depsidones
  3. depsipeptide
  4. depsipeptides
  5. dept
  6. dept.
  7. Deptford
  8. Deptford pink
  9. Deptford pinks
  10. depth
  11. depth bomb

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dept. (page history and authors); department (page history and authors); deputy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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