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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 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
Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune, 9 Aug. 2025
Such actions typically require bureaucrats to first collect evidence that a certain food is causing actual harm, and outside groups have already gathered dossiers of scientific studies.
—Nicholas Florko, The Atlantic, 16 July 2025
As his 306-page report concludes, the Clinton campaign was principally responsible for fabricating the story, and the FBI was recklessly irresponsible in opening a full investigation and using the dossier in court without rudimentary verification steps.
—The Editors, National Review, 24 July 2025
Meanwhile, Obama was too careful; Senate Republicans were too truculent; the Steele dossier created unrealistic expectations.
—Keith Gessen, New Yorker, 16 July 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Dossier.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dossier. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025.
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dossier
noun
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