Definitions

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

  • noun An officially elected or otherwise selected body of people vested with the responsibility and power to make laws for a political unit, such as a state or nation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A body of lawmakers; an assemblage of men invested with the power of making, repealing, or changing the laws of a country or state, and of raising and appropriating its revenues.
  • noun Any body of persons authorized to make laws or rules for the community represented by them: as, the General Assembly is the legislature of the Presbyterian Church.

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

  • noun The body of persons in a state or kingdom invested with power to make and repeal laws; a legislative body.

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

  • noun A governmental body with the power to make, amend and repeal laws.
  • noun Canada A legislative building.

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

  • noun persons who make or amend or repeal laws

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1676, from stem of legislator + -ure, cognate with (French): législature

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