PARLIAMENT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Parliament

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/pˈɑrləmənt/ Listen

noun

Parliament n.

1.

A parleying; a discussion; a conference. (Obs.) "But first they held their parliament."

2.

A formal conference on public affairs; a general council; esp., An assembly of representatives of a nation or people having authority to make laws. "They made request that it might be lawful for them to summon a parliament of Gauls."

3.

The assembly of the three estates of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, viz., the lords spiritual, lords temporal, and the representatives of the commons, sitting in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, constituting the legislature, when summoned by the royal authority to consult on the affairs of the nation, and to enact and repeal laws. Note: Thought the sovereign is a constituting branch of Parliament, the word is generally used to denote the three estates named above.

4.

In France, before the Revolution of 1789, one of the several principal judicial courts.

Parliament heel, the inclination of a ship when made to careen by shifting her cargo or ballast.

Parliament hinge (Arch.), a hinge with so great a projection from the wall or frame as to allow a door or shutter to swing back flat against the wall.

Long Parliament, Rump Parliament. See under Long, and Rump.

See images of 'Parliament'

Etymology of 'Parliament'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Parliament" Quotes from Famous Books

... station that the "greatest happiness principle" is ever likely to attain is this, that it may be a fashionable phrase among newspaper writers and members of parliament—that it may succeed to the dignity which has been enjoyed by the "original contract," by the "constitution of 1688," and other expressions of the same kind. We do not apprehend that it is a less ...

— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... corpus, the abridgment of the freedom of the press and the prohibition of elections. But the colonists generally succeeded in having their own way in the end, and were not wholly without encouragement and sympathy in the English Parliament. It may be that the war with France, which ended with the fall of Quebec, had much to do with this rather generous treatment. The Americans, too, were favored by the Whigs, who had been in power for more than seventy ...

— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke

... of it as a miracle. But so is the fact. Piedmont is a constitutional kingdom; and I went with M. Malan, himself a Waldensian, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies, to see the hall where their Parliament sits. A spacious flight of steps conducts to a noble hall, in form an ellipse, and surmounted by a dome. At one end of the ellipse hangs a portrait of the President, and underneath is his richly gilt chair, with a crimson-covered table before it. Right in front of the Speaker's chair, on a lower ...

— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... passing from one way of living and being governed to another. Scotland had not long been united with England. While the wisest of the nation saw that the only hope for the country was in being governed by the same king and parliament as the English, many of the most powerful men wished not to be governed at all, but to be altogether despotic over their dependents and neighbours, and to have their own way in everything. These lords and gentlemen did such violent things ...

— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... slight bow, passed on; and he had no sooner entered his private closet, still accompanied by his mother, than a herald announced in a loud voice that a great public council would be held on the following day at the meeting of the Parliament. ...

— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

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