FOREIGN OFFICE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Foreign Office mean? 

• FOREIGN OFFICE (noun)
  The noun FOREIGN OFFICE has 1 sense:

1. the government department in charge of foreign relations

  Familiarity information: FOREIGN OFFICE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOREIGN OFFICE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The government department in charge of foreign relations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("Foreign Office" is a kind of...):

ministry (a government department under the direction of a minister of state)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Foreign Office"):

French Foreign Office; Quai d'Orsay (the French department in charge of foreign affairs; referred to familiarly by its address in Paris)

 Context examples 

I then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum the results of which I have communicated to the Foreign Office.

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

If the treaty had reached, let us say, the French or Russian Foreign Office, you would expect to hear of it?

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

I was, as Watson may have told you, in the Foreign Office, and through the influences of my uncle, Lord Holdhurst, I rose rapidly to a responsible position.

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

A document of immense value has been stolen from the Foreign Office.

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

We have reason to believe that you have taken a paper of importance from the Foreign Office, and that you ran in here to dispose of it.

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

I heard vaguely that his abilities and the influences which he commanded had won him a good position at the Foreign Office, and then he passed completely out of my mind until the following letter recalled his existence: My dear Watson,—I have no doubt that you can remember “Tadpole” Phelps, who was in the fifth form when you were in the third.

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

It is possible even that you may have heard that through my uncle’s influence I obtained a good appointment at the Foreign Office, and that I was in a situation of trust and honour until a horrible misfortune came suddenly to blast my career.

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

I had already begun to suspect Joseph, from the fact that you had intended to travel home with him that night, and that therefore it was a likely enough thing that he should call for you, knowing the Foreign Office well, upon his way.

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

On it was scribbled in pencil: £10 Reward.—The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten in the evening of May 23rd. Apply 221B, Baker Street.

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