Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Composed of or based on two legislative chambers or branches.
  • adjective Medicine Composed of or having two chambers, as an abscess divided by a septum.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Two-chambered; pertaining to or consisting of two chambers: as, a bicameral legislature.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Consisting of, or including, two chambers, or legislative branches.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective politics Having, or pertaining to, two separate legislative chambers or houses.
  • adjective typography Having two cases: uppercase and lowercase.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective composed of two legislative bodies
  • adjective consisting of two chambers

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[bi– + Latin camera, chamber; see chamber + –al.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From bi- +‎ Latin camera ("chamber") +‎ -al.

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Examples

  • There can be ochlocracy in bicameral systems & democracy in unicameral ones. urgs Says:

    Matthew Yglesias » The Politeness Reflex 2009

  • America has what is known as a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature.

    How a Bill Becomes a Law 2008

  • Byrd described the essence of the Senate by telling a story about Jefferson and Washington disagreeing about the need for a two chamber legislature called a bicameral legislature.

    Archive 2006-04-01 Ellen Beth Gill 2006

  • DOBBS: In just the past few minutes, new developments in our report tonight on the Republican calls a bicameral investigation into the leak of secret intelligence on CIA prisons overseas.

    CNN Transcript Nov 8, 2005 2005

  • Moreover, far from mentioning the word or thought "bicameral," the statement stressed that all work of the convention should be done "jointly by blacks and whites, and to that end we now double in size every committee of this convention."

    Department of Further Amplification Adler, Renata 1967

  • This helpful listing provides brief explanations for terms related to American government such as "bicameral" and "deregulation."

    doggdot.us 2009

  • There being also the 'bicameral' nature of brain to consider, and the 'corpus callosum' or bridge over troubled axons as Heraclitean concept of 'flux'?

    CounterPunch 2009

  • In addition, they sought to establish safeguards such as bicameral legislatures and application of the doctrine of separation of powers.

    FJ's Blog 2009

  • The bicameral, bipartisan introduction of the VRA reauthorization bill, named "The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006," on May 2nd was hailed by civil rights groups as "historic."

    Civil Rights 2010

  • Yet Italy's bicameral parliament and Mr. Berlusconi's fractious majority coalition make it hard to believe his pledged economic reforms—54 of them, according to Industry Minister Paolo Romani—will see the light of day in a timely fashion.

    Italy Buffeted by Greece News Christopher Emsden 2011

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