Quai d'Orsay

American  

[ke dawr-se, key dawr-sey, kwey] / kɛ dɔrˈsɛ, ˈkeɪ dɔrˈseɪ, ˈkweɪ /

noun

1. the quay along the south bank of the Seine in Paris, on which are located the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other French government offices.

2. the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Quai d'Orsay British  

/ ke dɔrsɛ /

noun

1. the quay along the S bank of the Seine, Paris, where the French foreign office is situated

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Example Sentences

But now a cadre of bureaucrats in Paris’s gilded Quai d’Orsay are ditching their carefully worded communiqués in favor of a stream of real-time X posts that mix self-mockery and sarcasm…in English.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026

The strike on June 2 would be only the second in the history of Quai d’Orsay — the Paris location of the foreign service that is the shorthand for the institution.

From New York Times • May 31, 2022

She is the first woman to head the Quai d’Orsay, the plush headquarters of French diplomacy on the banks of the Seine River, since Michèle Alliot-Marie’s short stint as foreign minister ended in February 2011.

From Seattle Times • May 20, 2022

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov attend a joint news conference after a meeting at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris, France, November 27, 2018.

From Reuters • Feb. 21, 2022

For example, there was the Piscine Deligny, the city’s oldest pool, dating back to 1796, an open-air barge moored to the Quai d’Orsay and the venue for the swimming events of the 1900 Olympics.

From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel