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• foreign service
  foreign service

  noun

  a division of the U.S. Department of State or of a foreign office that maintains diplomatic and consular posts and personnel in other countries.
• Foreign Service
  Foreign Service

  The professional arm of the executive branch that supplies diplomats for the United States embassies and consulates around the world. Ambassadors, though officially members of the Foreign Service, are sometimes friends of the president of the United States appointed in gratitude for support given during elections.

foreign service

American  

noun

(often initial capital letters)

1. a division of the U.S. Department of State or of a foreign office that maintains diplomatic and consular posts and personnel in other countries.

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foreign service British  

noun

1. the diplomatic and usually consular personnel of a foreign affairs ministry or foreign office collectively who represent their country abroad, deal with foreign diplomats at home, etc

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Foreign Service Cultural  

1. The professional arm of the executive branch that supplies diplomats for the United States embassies and consulates around the world. Ambassadors, though officially members of the Foreign Service, are sometimes friends of the president of the United States appointed in gratitude for support given during elections.

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Etymology

Origin of foreign service

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Still, when their husbands die, ostensibly in a plane crash, Bea and Twila are grief-stricken — they have lost not only their husbands but their careers as foreign service wives.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 15, 2026

At one point in February, Marocco tried ordering the immediate return of foreign service officers stationed abroad.

From Salon • Dec. 16, 2025

Cynthia Iglesias Guven worked at the Agriculture Department since 1998, living around the world as a foreign service officer and eventually taking a senior job in Washington.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 4, 2025

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat.

From BBC • Jan. 14, 2025

Even while on foreign service he had amused himself with studying the digestive faculties of snakes and lizards when in a torpid state, and many were the contributions he sent home to his brother’s museum.

From The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc. by Various