Definition of "fire department" []

• A department, especially of a municipal government, whose purpose is preventing and putting out fires. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Richard Bliven of the fire department in Lyndon, Ky., a suburb of Louisville, says the original plan was to erect a monument in its memorial garden at headquarters."
• "A fireman in jeans and a fire department T-shirt waved us on toward the Pine Point Fishermen's Co-op, where Marine 4 was already in the water."
• "If the fire department is about to cut through a wall to rescue our eight-hundred-pound selves, we want to look our best."