English

Noun

foreign correspondent ‎(plural foreign correspondents)

1. (journalism) A reporter or freelance journalist who is based in a foreign country, and who provides news reports and/or commentary from that place.
   • 1874, Horatio Alger, Risen from the Ranks, ch. 36:

     Oscar Vincent spent several years abroad, after graduation, acting as foreign correspondent of his father's paper.

   • 1922, Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton, Black Oxen, ch. 35:

     "Couldn't you be foreign correspondent for your newspaper?"

     "We've good men in every European capital now. They've no use for more."

   • 2013 Auugst 17, Sarah Lyall, "Dispatch: Ta-Ta, London. Hello, Awesome.," New York Times (18 June 2014):

     Now that my spell as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times has ended and I’ve come back home—if a place counts as home when you’ve been away for so long—I’ve had some time to think about how Britain and America have changed.

2. (business, dated) A clerical employee responsible for communicating with an organization's stakeholders in other countries and for processing transactions involving them; a firm employed by an organization to assume such responsibilities.
   • 1776, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, ch. 1:

     When the government, or those who acted under them, contracted with a merchant for a remittance to some foreign country, he would naturally endeavour to pay his foreign correspondent, upon whom he granted a bill, by sending abroad rather commodities than gold and silver.

   • 1849, Charlotte Brontë, Shirley, ch. 8:

     The secrets of business—complicated and often dismal mysteries—were buried in his breast and never came out of their sepulchre save now and then to scare Joe Scott, or give a start to some foreign correspondent.

   • 1885, Charlotte M. Yonge, Nuttie's Father, ch. 17:

     [F]alling in with one of the partners of the umbrella firm in quest of French silk, he was engaged as foreign correspondent.

   • 1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Firm of Girdlestone, ch. 28:

     The German had resumed his situation as commercial clerk and foreign correspondent to Eckermann & Co.

Translations

References

• foreign correspondent at OneLook Dictionary Search