secretary of defense

Cultural

The civilian head of the United States Department of Defense and a member of the cabinet, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The secretary of defense works with civilian and military advisers to formulate American military policies and make foreign policy recommendations to the president.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has threatened Amodei with retaliation if the tech boss insists on limiting how Anthropic is used.

From BBC

His comments come two days after a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over demands that Anthropic accept "any lawful use" of its tools.

From BBC

Mexican Secretary of Defense Ricardo Trevilla Trejo choked up at a Monday press conference in Mexico City as he paid homage to the 25 Mexican National Guardsmen who lost their lives on Sunday.

From The Wall Street Journal

“If the current American administration chooses to emphasize shared interests, this is okay. But we believe in our interactions with the Americans that there is more to that,” Germany’s state secretary of defense, Nils Schmid, said in an interview.

From The Wall Street Journal

U.S. forces chased down an oil tanker fleeing the quarantine around Venezuela all the way to the Indian Ocean, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday, a monthlong pursuit that ended in the ship’s capture.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023