Opinion of the Court
foreign state concerned.”
The most natural reading of this language is that service must be mailed directly to the foreign minister’s office in the foreign state. Although this is not, we grant, the only plausible reading of the statutory text, it is the most natural one. See, e. g., United States v. Hohri, 482 U. S. 64, 69–71 (1987) (choosing the “more natural” reading of a statute); ICC v. Texas, 479 U. S. 450, 456–457 (1987) (same); see also Florida Dept. of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc., 554 U. S. 33, 41 (2008) (similar).
A key term in §1608(a)(3) is the past participle “addressed.” A letter or package is “addressed” to an intended recipient when his or her name and “address” is placed on the outside of the item to be sent. And the noun “address,” in the sense relevant here, means “the designation of a place (as a residence or place of business) where a person or organization may be found or communicated with.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 25 (1971) (Webster’s Third); see also Webster’s Second New International Dictionary 30 (1957) (“the name or description of a place of residence, business, etc., where a person may be found or communicated with”); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 17 (1966) (“the place or the name of the place where a person, organization, or the like is located or may be reached”); American Heritage Dictionary 15 (1969) (“[t]he location at which a particular organization or person may be found or reached”); Oxford English Dictionary 106 (1933) (OED) (“the name of the place to which any one’s letters are directed”). Since a foreign nation’s embassy in the United States is neither the residence nor the usual place of business of that nation’s foreign minister and is not a place where the minister can customarily be found, the most common understanding of the minister’s “address” is inconsistent with the interpretation of §1608(a)(3) adopted by the court below and advanced by respondents.
