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Gather together various documents relating to the affairs of a certain individual, sort them into separate folders, label the spine of each folder, and arrange the folders in a box. Dossier, the French word for such a compendium of spine-labeled folders, was picked up by English speakers in the 19th century. It comes from dos, the French word for "back." The verb endorse (which originally meant "to write on the back of") and the rare adjective addorsed ("set or turned back to back," a term primarily used in heraldry) are also derived, via the Anglo-French endosser and French adosser respectively, from dos. The French dos has its origins in the Latin dorsum, a word which also gave English the adjective dorsal ("situated on the back"), as in "the dorsal fin of a whale."
Examples of dossier in a Sentence
PCMAG, 23 Oct. 2024
The Trump administration’s antitrust dossier includes its attempt to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner.
—Anjana Susarla, Quartz, 21 Oct. 2024
The Trump administration’s antitrust dossier includes its attempt to block AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner.
—Anjana Susarla, The Conversation, 18 Oct. 2024
The dossier published by Klippenstein contained some of Vance’s personal information, including his home address and part of his social security number.
—Liam Reilly, CNN, 11 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Dossier.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dossier. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.
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dossier
noun
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