council

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An assembly of persons called together for consultation, deliberation, or discussion.
2. n. A body of people elected or appointed to serve as administrators, legislators, or advisors.
3. n. An assembly of church officials and theologians convened for regulating matters of doctrine and discipline.
4. n. The discussion or deliberation that takes place in such an assembly or body.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any assembly of persons summoned or convened for consultation, deliberation, or advice: as, a council of physicians; a family council.
2. n. A body of men specially designated or selected to advise a sovereign in the administration of the government; a privy council: as, the president of the council; in English history, an order in council. See privy council, below.
3. n. In many of the British colonies, a body assisting the governor in either an executive or a legislative capacity, or in both.
4. n. In the Territories of the United States, the upper branch of the legislature. The term was used to denote a kind of upper house during the colonial period, and was retained in this sense for a few years by some of the States.
5. n. A common council. See below.
6. n. In the New Testament, the Sanhedrim, a Jewish court or parliament, with functions partly judicial, partly legislative, and partly ecclesiastical. See Sanhedrim.
7. n. In ecclesiastical history: An assembly of prelates and theologians convened for the purpose of regulating matters of doctrine and discipline in the church. Ecclesiastical councils are diocesan, provincial, national, general, or ecumenical. A diocesan council is composed of the ecclesiastics of a particular diocese, with the bishop at their head; a provincial or metropolitan council, of the bishops of an ecclesiastical province, with the archbishops at their head; and a national or plenary council, of the bishops and archbishops of all the provinces in the nation. General council and ecumenical council are ordinarily regarded as equivalent terms, but strictly speaking a general council is one called together by an invitation addressed to the church at large, and claiming to speak in the name of the whole church. Such a council is ecumenical only if received by the Catholic Church in general. None of the general councils most widely accepted as ecumenical consisted of even a majority of orthodox bishops present in person or by deputy. The subsequent consent of the church at large marked them as ecumenical, especially their reception by the next general council held after the first violence of controversy had somewhat abated and opposition had become local in character. Both emperors and popes have summoned general councils. According to Roman Catholic teaching, a council to be regarded as ecumenical must have been called together by the pope, or at least with his consent, and its decrees must be confirmed by the pope. There are seven ecumenical councils recognized as such by both the Greek and Latin or Roman Catholic churches, and to some extent also by some Protestant theologians: they are the first Council of Nice, held in 325; the first Council of Constantinople, 381; the Council of Ephesus, 431; the Council of Chalcedon, 451; the second Council of Constantinople, 553; the third Council of Constantinople, 680; and the second Council of Nice, 787. Other important councils regarded by the Roman Catholic, but not by either the Greek or the Protestant communion, as ecumenical are the Council of Trent (1545-63) and the Council of the Vatican (1869-70). The Anglican Church receives the first six councils.
8. n. Any body or group of persons wielding political power.
9. n. Same as counsel. See counsel.
10. n. A Lutheran body organized in the United States in 1866 by the Pennsylvania synod and others which were not in sympathy with the attitude of the general synod toward the Augsburg Confession. The council proclaimed strict adherence to the Lutheran faith.

Wiktionary

1. n. A committee that leads or governs (e.g. city council, student council)
2. n. discussion or deliberation

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An assembly of men summoned or convened for consultation, deliberation, or advice.
2. n. A body of man elected or appointed to constitute an advisory or a legislative assembly.
3. n. Act of deliberating; deliberation; consultation.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a body serving in an administrative capacity
2. n. (Christianity) an assembly of theologians and bishops and other representatives of different churches or dioceses that is convened to regulate matters of discipline or doctrine
3. n. a meeting of people for consultation