immigration and naturalization service
noun · n
Simple meaning
An agency in the Department of Justice that enforces laws and regulations for the admission of foreign-born persons to the United States.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihmuhgrayshuhnuhndnacheruhluhzayshuhnservuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪməɡˈɹeɪʃənəndnætʃɚələzeɪʃənsɚvəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An agency in the Department of Justice that enforces laws and regulations for the admission of foreign-born persons to the United States
n
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An agency in the Department of Justice that enforces laws and regulations for the admission of foreign-born persons to the United States
Used this way, immigration and naturalization service is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.