Parliament

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Parliament \Par"lia*ment\, n. [OE. parlement, F. parlement, fr.
     parler to speak; cf. LL. parlamentum, parliamentum. See
     {Parley}.]
     1. A parleying; a discussion; a conference. [Obs.]
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              But first they held their parliament. --Rom. of R.
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     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.
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              They made request that it might be lawful for them
              to summon a parliament of Gauls.      --Golding.
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     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.
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     Note: Thought the sovereign is a constituting branch of
           Parliament, the word is generally used to denote the
           three estates named above.
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     4. In France, before the Revolution of 1789, one of the
        several principal judicial courts.
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     {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}.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  parliament
       n 1: a legislative assembly in certain countries (e.g., Great
            Britain)
       2: a card game in which you play your sevens and other cards in
          sequence in the same suit as their sevens; you win if you
          are the first to use all your cards [syn: {fantan}, {sevens}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  33 Moby Thesaurus words for "parliament":
     Parliament, assembly, bicameral legislature, board of aldermen,
     chamber of deputies, city board, city council, commission,
     common council, congress, council, court, diet, federal assembly,
     general assembly, house of assembly, legislative assembly,
     legislative body, legislative chamber, legislature, lower chamber,
     lower house, national assembly, provincial legislature,
     provincial parliament, representative town meeting, soviet,
     state assembly, state legislature, town meeting,
     unicameral legislature, upper chamber, upper house
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  PARLIAMENT. This word, derived from the French parlement, in the English 
  law, is used to designate the legislative branch of the government of Great 
  Britain, composed of the house of lords, and the house of commons. 
       2. It is an error to regard the king of Great Britain as forming a part 
  of parliament. The connexion between the king and the lords spiritual, the 
  lords temporal, and the commons, which, when assembled in parliament, form 
  the, three states of the realm, is the same as that which subsists between 
  the king and those states -- the people at large -- out of parliament; 
  Colton's Records, 710; the king not being, in either case, a member, branch, 
  or co-estate, but  standing solely in the relation of sovereign or head. 
  Rot. Par. vol. iii,. 623 a.; 2 Mann. & Gr. 457 n.