consulate
/ˈkɒnsjʊlət
/noun
1The building in which a consul’s duties are carried out: he called at the consulate in Palestine to pick up a visa...
- The company has lately moved into embassy building by constructing bug-free consulates for U.S. diplomats in Kyrgyzstan and Guinea-Bissau.
- Yet despite this, both consulates were rather attractive buildings: cool and breezy, with intricately carved banisters and fine teak panelling.
- Besides consulting embassies and consulates in China, companies with wide human resources experience will also call universities to confirm the qualifications of applicants for jobs.
1.1The office or position of a consul.Then I called up Winston Churchill, who, at the age of 114, had been assigned to an insignificant position at the British consulate in Los Angeles....
- With her trademark tenacity, she spent two hours on the phone from her office and the British consulate, getting to ear-bash the woman in charge of the mobile phone division and get a foot in the headquarters door.
- Figures on how many had voted were not available as many Americans would have cast their ballot through their home-state election offices, said the consulate.
2 historical The period of office of a Roman consul.It so impressed such an authority as Cicero that he begged Posidonius to write up his cherished consulate....
- Although the inscription on the pediment declares, "M. Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul during his third consulate, built this," it was actually Hadrian who built the Pantheon as a rotunda.
- In 23 BC, Octavian gave up the consulate, but the senate forced him to keep power over the provinces.
2.1 (the consulate) The system of government by consuls in ancient Rome.Should however the revolution turn into the directorate, the consulate and then the empire, you may come round and lynch us....
- In 63 BC, when Cicero was consul, Catiline put himself forward for the consulate for the next year, and there were rumours that he planned to kill Cicero during the elections in the Campus Martius.
- The latter had once commanded the praetorians and had been rewarded with the decorations of the consulate.
3 (the Consulate) The government of the first French republic (1799–1804) by three consuls.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting the government of Rome by consuls): from Latin consulatus, from consul (see consul).