English Reference
Noun

dossier

n. countable
C1 Advanced US /ˌdɔsˈjeɪ/ UK /dˈɒsɪˌeɪ/ dossier UK spelling dossiers

n.a collection of papers or digital files that contains detailed information about a specific person, event, or subject.

n.a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject. Often implies a comprehensive or secretive gathering of intelligence.


SIMPLE

The police compiled a dossier on the suspect.

CONTEXTUAL

The investigative journalist spent months building a dossier that detailed the company's history of environmental violations.

COMPLEX

The intelligence agency released a heavily redacted dossier concerning the diplomatic incident, though many critical details remained classified to protect ongoing operations.

Usage

Commonly paired with the preposition 'on' to indicate the subject of the documents.


Unadapted borrowing from French dossier.

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry
Level C1 · Advanced
Frequency Frequent
Updated