Definition of DOSSIER

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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 late 19th century. It comes from "dos," the French word for "back," which is in turn derived from "dorsum," Latin for back. Our word dorsal ("situated on the back"), as in the dorsal fin of a whale, comes from the same Latin source.

Examples of dossier in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

He was prominently mentioned in the unsubstantiated dossier compiled by a former British spy which alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. — Jeff Pegues, CBS News, "Exclusive: Michael Cohen believes Trump and his allies are turning on him," 14 June 2018 After Rouhani was relieved of his duties in 2005, Iran’s nuclear dossier was eventually transferred to the UNSC, and the first in a series of escalating UNSC Resolutions (UNSCRs) against Iran were passed. — Behnam Ben Taleblu, Fortune, "Iran Could Benefit From the Brewing U.S.-Europe Nuclear Deal Dispute," 14 May 2018 Yet those officials marched into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and never revealed in any of their warrant applications that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign. — Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, "Who Is Michael Sussmann?," 11 Oct. 2018 Steele’s claims that Trump or his team provided information to the Kremlin has not been proven, along with several additional claims in the dossier. — Alex Finley - Center For Public Integrity, Vox, "Trump got the National Enquirer to bury his secrets. Did he do the same with Putin?," 21 Dec. 2018 By the way, the dossier at the time was classified according to the FBI and DOJ. — Fox News, "Carter Page reacts to calls to declassify FISA documents," 15 Sep. 2018 The former private investigator had founded computerized records company CDB Infotek, which condensed public records into digital dossiers, in 1978. — Adi Robertson, The Verge, "Men are from cyberspace: this week in tech, 20 years ago," 6 Oct. 2018 Comey describes Trump as having been obsessed with the prostitutes portion of the infamous dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, raising it at least four times with the FBI head. — Philip Rucker, Anchorage Daily News, "Comey’s memoir: Trump fixates on proving lewd dossier allegations false," 13 Apr. 2018 Papadopoulos appears nowhere in the 16 reports Steele wrote between June and December 2016 that are now known collectively as the Steele dossier. — Washington Post, "Sentence buried in GOP memo may undercut Trump efforts to discredit Russia probe," 7 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dossier.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.