Secret Intelligence Service
1
3.9
- proper noun
- UK
:
Servicio de Inteligencia Secreta
- "The JIC functions to direct the key components of the intelligence services, including the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6), Security Service (MI5), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), and to communicate advice to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
- Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)
Examples
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The Secret Intelligence Service played a crucial role in gathering intelligence during the Cold War.
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On most working days she labored as a translator at the Greater China Mutual Aid Society, an insurance firm, but in reality she was an officer in the British Secret Intelligence Service, the SIS.
Fiction book (2001) -
He had been knowingly providing information about the Bo family to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, for more than a year when he was murdered in China last November, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal has found.
Blog text (9) -
In 2010, the Secret Intelligence Service revealed its annual report to increase transparency about its operations.
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Many films feature the Secret Intelligence Service, often portraying it as a glamorous and dangerous organization.
Synonyms
A British government service that gathers secret information abroad and runs secret operations
Surface Forms
Morphology
secret + intelligence + service
The constituent words 'secret' (confidential) + 'intelligence' (secret information) + 'service' (an organization) combine directly to denote an organization that handles confidential information and operations; a B1 learner who knows those words can infer it refers to an agency dealing with secret intelligence (even if they do not know the specific British name MI6). This adjective+noun+noun organizational composition is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward English composition patterns, so the meaning is immediately recoverable from the parts.
Etymology
Secret Intelligence Service is a plain job description: secret means hidden, intelligence means information, and service means a group that helps the government. So, the name came to mean the British agency that works in secret to gather information abroad, commonly called 'MI6'.