Secretariat
(sɛkrɪˈtɛərɪət)
Also Secretariate, and with lower-case initial.
[a. F. secrétariat, ad. med.L. sēcrētāriāt-us the office of a secretary, f. sēcrētārius secretary: see -ate1.]
The office or official position of secretary; the body or department of secretaries; the place where a secretary transacts business, preserves records, etc. Also, the administrative and executive department of a government or similar organization (as the United Nations), usu. directed by a Secretary(-General); freq. in Communist use [cf. Russ. sekretariát].
| α 1811 Wellington Let. to C. Stuart 12 Jan. in Gurw. Desp. (1838) VII. 97, I conduct the operations of the Portuguese army as Marshal General, without any reference to the Secretariat. 1849 E. B. Eastwick Dry Leaves 116 A series of letters to the Secretariat at Bombay. 1861 Money Java I. 238 The Secretariat.—The Governor-General is further assisted by a Secretary-General, who has under him three secretaries of Government, and a large staff of clerks. 1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 22 Nov. 8/2 The vacancy in the secretariat of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 1908 Ld. Roberts in Lee-Warner Mem. Sir H. W. Norman 310 After the mutiny his career took him to the Military Secretariat. 1926 Encycl. Brit. III. 428/1 This ‘plenum’ elects..the Secretariat of the Central Committee of five members with two deputies. 1934 B. W. Maxwell Soviet State iii. 42 The Central Committee of the Union..is divided into three sections: (1) a Secretariat, which performs the current work of organization and execution. 1934 Webster, Secretariat,..the permanent organ of the League of Nations, comprising the Secretary-General, with officials and secretaries appointed by him. 1949 T. Lie Road to Peace 1 Next, I want to thank my staff, the members of the Secretariat. 1955 Bull. Atomic Sci. Mar. 85/2 The movement works through its secretariat in Amsterdam where the activities of its national groups are coordinated. 1965 A. Nove in B. Pearce tr. Preobrazhensky's New Economics p. viii, The party secretariat did not yet have the importance it acquired under Stalin. 1977 Whitaker's Almanack 1978 957 The real power in the Party [Communist] is vested..in the Politbureau, the Secretariat and the permanent Departments of the Central Committee. |
| β 1858 M. Pattison Ess. (1889) II. 345 Before the beginning of the present century Montaigne's Secretariate to the Queen had become an accredited event. 1910 Guardian 22 Apr. 568/3 Claudius..is regarded as the puppet of dissolute wives and insolent freedmen, not the shrewd organiser of a new Imperial Exchequer and secretariate. |