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police department

police department

179 1.3
A local government group that enforces laws and prevents crime
  • noun
  • /pəˈliːs dɪˈpɑːrtmənt/
  • US
translation icon : departamento de policía
  • The rate of loss has slowed down, but police departments, especially in big cities, are not growing.
  • a local police department
  • police department officers
  • reform a police department

So she called the Phoenix Police Department and I said, what?

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Examples

  • Does that put a lot of pressure then on Police Department to then try and get answers?

  • You guys got one hell of a police department around here.

  • But yet in my life in Chicago with the Police Department, it seemed like good times.

  • The government, the Police Department, these things need to be a part of a whole.

  • We turned it in and we went to the police department.

  • Officially, June is the end of the Chicago Police Department career as we know it.

  • This is from a study of the San Francisco Police Department, which we can link as well.

  • Informed sources say, however, that the police department has no real clues.

  • The symbolic issue of authority helped make the police department the focus of Black demands.

    Academic text (1992)
  • The rate of loss has slowed down, but police departments, especially in big cities, are not growing.

Synonyms

police
vspolice department
1.0

People who enforce laws, prevent crime, and keep public order

is focused on service as a local government unit rather than the general institution
police force
vspolice department
146 2.0

A group of officers who keep order and safety in a town or city

is the local government unit responsible for enforcing laws and preventing crime
law enforcement agency
vspolice department
50 3.1

A group that makes sure people follow rules and stops crime and finds who did it

is narrower, referring specifically to a local government unit enforcing laws in an area
constabulary
vspolice department
  • UK
6 8.1

A local police force that serves a county or town

is the standard modern local government unit rather than a regional or historical term
CPD
vspolice department
  • Literature
4 5.4

The police force that serves a city

is the full official name used by local government rather than an abbreviation

How Large

police
1.0
police department
  • US
179 1.3
police station
157 1.0
police squad
1 3.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

police + department

The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'police' (law-enforcement organization) with 'department' (an organizational unit): it simply denotes the unit responsible for policing in an area. This noun‑noun composition is a common, regular pattern cross‑linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

The compound police department comes from two plain words: police are people whose job is to keep order and department means a part or office of a government. Together they create the image of a local office that deals with crime and keeps the peace, so the phrase means 'the part of local government that enforces laws'.