Foreign Secretary

noun

"foreign-secretary" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Foreign Secretary” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
17
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The British cabinet minister who heads the Foreign Office and is responsible for Britain's relations and dealings with other countries. Official full title: Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwe...

Corpus desk

Index EN-foreign-secretary · Foreign Secretary · English

Foreign Secretary · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 17 letters
  • VOW-7 7 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "F" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for Foreign Secretary
PropertyValue
HeadwordForeign Secretary
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters17
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “Foreign Secretary” in English

Foreign Secretaryfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Foreign Secretary is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Foreign Secretary, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is Foreign Secretary, spelled F-O-R-E-I-G-N- -S-E-C-R-E-T-A-R-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    The British cabinet minister who heads the Foreign Office and is responsible for Britain's relations and dealings with other countries. Official full title: Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs.
  2. 2
    A senior civil servant who conducts and supervises foreign and diplomatic relations.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how Foreign Secretary appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Philip Hammond has been appointed chancellor of the exchequer and Boris Johnson foreign secretary as Theresa May allocated the top posts in her cabinet on her first evening as prime minister.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Foreign Secretary"?
"Foreign Secretary" is spelled F-O-R-E-I-G-N- -S-E-C-R-E-T-A-R-Y.
What does "Foreign Secretary" mean?
As a noun, "Foreign Secretary" means: The British cabinet minister who heads the Foreign Office and is responsible for Britain's relations and dealings with other countries. Official full title: Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwe...
What language does "Foreign Secretary" come from?
"Foreign Secretary" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list