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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
Anvee Bhutani, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2025
By working diligently, the House has assembled an explosive dossier on just how the state wastes our money.
—Steve Bousquet, The Orlando Sentinel, 2 Apr. 2025
Trump has accused Elias, along with others, of being behind a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations about his links to Russia that were investigated by the FBI during his first campaign for president in 2016.
—Jay Weaver, Miami Herald, 25 Mar. 2025
Investigations about the dossier discredited many of central allegations and the credibility of of Steele’s sources.
—Bart Jansen, USA TODAY, 24 Mar. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Dossier.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dossier. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.
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dossier
noun
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