SECRETARY OF STATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Secretary of State mean? 

• SECRETARY OF STATE (noun)
  The noun SECRETARY OF STATE has 3 senses:

1. the person who holds the secretaryship of the Department of State

2. a government minister for foreign relations

3. the position of the head of the State Department

  Familiarity information: SECRETARY OF STATE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SECRETARY OF STATE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The person who holds the secretaryship of the Department of State

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

the first Secretary of State was Thomas Jefferson

Hypernyms ("Secretary of State" is a kind of...):

secretary (a person who is head of an administrative department of government)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A government minister for foreign relations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

foreign minister; secretary of state

Hypernyms ("secretary of state" is a kind of...):

government minister; minister (a person appointed to a high office in the government)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The position of the head of the State Department

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

the position of Secretary of State was established in 1789

Hypernyms ("Secretary of State" is a kind of...):

secretaryship (the position of secretary)

Holonyms ("Secretary of State" is a member of...):

United States Cabinet; US Cabinet (a board to advise the President; members are the secretaries of executive departments; the United States constitution does not provide for the cabinet)

 Context examples 

Lord of the Admiralty, 1872; Chief Secretary of State for——’ Well, well, this man is certainly one of the greatest subjects of the Crown!

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There, the devoted postman on that beat delivered bushels of letters for me; and there, at intervals, I laboured through them, like a Home Secretary of State without the salary.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I confess, it was whispered to me, that I was bound in duty, as a subject of England, to have given in a memorial to a secretary of state at my first coming over; because, whatever lands are discovered by a subject belong to the crown.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, by the natives called Langdon, where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies. The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains. These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)