Parliament

How to spell parliament

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce parliament

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parliament mean?

1. nounThe supreme legislative body of a country, made up of elected and sometimes appointed representatives who debate and pass laws.

Parliament in a sentence

• The bill passed through parliament.

• The new law passed parliament unanimously.

• Parliament resumes after the summer break.

Where does parliament come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the Old French parlement, a noun built on the verb parler, meaning 'to speak' or 'to talk', which itself traces back to the Late Latin parabolare 'to discourse', from parabola 'a comparison or speech'. The original sense was simply a 'talking' or 'conference', that is, a meeting where people spoke together. By the 1200s English had adopted it for a formal assembly summoned to discuss matters of state, and over the following centuries it settled into the name for the supreme legislative body of the realm. The silent 'ia' in the middle is the spelling trap: the word is pronounced as if it were 'parlament', yet that hidden 'i' survives from the French -ement ending. The same parler root still lives in everyday words such as 'parley', 'parlour' (a room for talking), and 'parlance'.

How the word is built

• parl- (from French parler: to speak)
• -ement (noun suffix denoting the result or place of action)