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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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

Michael holds a B.S. in foreign service from Georgetown University, an M.A. in Russian studies from Indiana University at Bloomington and a PhD in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 5, 2026

And then they tell the career civil servants and foreign service officers and military people, “This is what we want to get at the negotiating table. How do we do that?”

From Salon • Aug. 12, 2025

Not long after that job ended, Merry retired from the foreign service.

From Slate • Dec. 23, 2024

We had also to look after the service men who were medically unfit for foreign service, and who were transferred to the land, and to insist that the farmers treated them fairly.

From From Crow-Scaring to Westminster; an Autobiography by George Edwards M.P. O.B.E.