the Foreign Office

noun

: a government department especially in Great Britain that deals with foreign affairs

Note: The official name of the British Foreign Office is now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Examples of the Foreign Office in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

As the Foreign Office guidance changed on the Gulf, customers who have already booked have the right to cancel a package holiday. —Marc Shoffman, TheWeek, 5 Mar. 2026

Palmerston was rescued from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and joined the Foreign Office in 2016 during a turbulent time in British politics, just months before the UK voted to withdraw from the European Union. —Lex Harvey, CNN Money, 17 Feb. 2026

The sceptics also include some in the Foreign Office (the U.K. equivalent of the U.S. State Department) who dislike intensely the way Starmer has flattered Trump by, for example, inviting him for an unprecedented second state visit. —Ian King, CNBC, 21 Jan. 2026

To formally present his invention, Matip is invited to a meeting at Wyvern Abbey, the country estate of George Lomax (Alex Macqueen), Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. —Isadora Wandermurem, Time, 15 Jan. 2026

The Russian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office to respond to the report and to ongoing Russian hybrid operations. —Amanda Castro, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Dec. 2025

Above him, Princess Kate watched in quiet composure from the Foreign Office balcony. —Simon Perry, PEOPLE, 12 Nov. 2025

But the British had cut all five cables at the outset of the war, forcing the Foreign Office to encode its communications and dispatch them over wireless or through other means. —Timothy W. Ryback, The Atlantic, 11 Apr. 2025

That same year, the BBC began broadcasting in a range of European languages, again in close consultation with the Foreign Office, in response to Nazi radio propaganda and Hitler’s territorial ambitions. —Simon J. Potter, Foreign Affairs, 31 July 2023

Rhymes for the Foreign Office

• interoffice