Did you know?
Gather together various documents relating to the affairs of a certain individual, sort them into separate folders, label the spine of each folder, and arrange the folders in a box. Dossier, the French word for such a compendium of spine-labeled folders, was picked up by English speakers in the 19th century. It comes from dos, the French word for "back." The verb endorse (which originally meant "to write on the back of") and the rare adjective addorsed ("set or turned back to back," a term primarily used in heraldry) are also derived, via the Anglo-French endosser and French adosser respectively, from dos. The French dos has its origins in the Latin dorsum, a word which also gave English the adjective dorsal ("situated on the back"), as in "the dorsal fin of a whale."
Examples of dossier in a Sentence
Kaelan Deese, The Washington Examiner, 27 Sep. 2025
This would pose a problem if the Chinese government was then taking the data and using it to learn about the American public and build dossiers for blackmail or espionage.
—Andrew R. Chow, Time, 22 Sep. 2025
Johnson, who's also the bestselling author of the Truly Devious trilogy, among others, says the idea stemmed from her own childhood obsession with solving mysteries and 1930s-era dossier mystery books.
—Lizz Schumer, PEOPLE, 21 Sep. 2025
But more often, the data the company tracks will be compiled into evidence dossiers for two uses — lobbying social media platforms to remove content and preparing for potential legal battles against offenders.
—Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 9 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dossier
Cite this Entry
“Dossier.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dossier. Accessed 9 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
dossier
noun
Share