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🇫🇷 French foreign ministry 🛣️ A Paris street
Quai d'Orsay

Quai d'Orsay

9.5
A street in Paris by the Seine often used as a name for the French foreign ministry
  • proper noun
  • /keɪ dɔrˈseɪ/
translation icon : Quai d'Orsay
  • A week later, I was at my Quai d'Orsay office when I received more alarming news.

Examples

  • She lived in luxury, occupying an atelier apartment on the Quai d'Orsay and entertaining guests in a country house in Grosrouvre, about an hour's drive from the capital.

    Academic text (2010)

  • The French Minister of Foreign Affairs held a press conference at the Quai d'Orsay to discuss the new diplomatic policy.

  • Protests erupted outside the Quai d'Orsay as citizens voiced their concerns about foreign policy decisions.

  • Many historical treaties were signed at the Quai d'Orsay, making it a significant location in French diplomacy.

Synonyms

French Foreign Office
vsQuai d'Orsay
4.7

A government office that deals with France's relations with other countries

is a Paris street used figuratively to mean the same government body

Surface Forms

Quai d'Orsay main

Morphology

quai + d'Orsay

The literal locational sense — 'the quay/riverwalk named Orsay' — is directly derivable from 'quai' (walkway beside a river) plus the genitive name element, so learners who know the constituents can infer it refers to a riverside street. However, its frequent metonymic use for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is idiomatic and not predictable from the parts (and 'd'Orsay' is a proper name unfamiliar to many learners), so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Quai d'Orsay is the name of the long riverside street along the Seine in Paris where many government offices stand, so you can picture official buildings and diplomats by the water. That is why the name can mean the street itself or, by extension, 'the Foreign Ministry' that is located there.