Senate

How to spell senate

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce senate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does senate mean?

1. nounA governing or law-making assembly, especially the upper chamber of a legislature.

Senate in a sentence

• The bill passed the lower house but stalled in the senate.

• Each state elects two members to the senate.

Where does senate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin senatus, meaning a 'council of elders', which was built directly on senex, the Latin word for 'old man' or 'aged'. The underlying idea was that authority belonged to those made wise by years, so the original Roman Senate was literally an assembly of the elder statesmen of the city. English took the word in during the 1200s through Old French senat, at first to describe that ancient Roman governing body, and only later applied it to modern legislative chambers such as those of the United States, Canada, and many universities. The same senex root survives in everyday relatives like 'senior' and 'senile', a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the plain -sen- opening with no double letters. The quiet trap is the unstressed second vowel, written -ate but sounded as a faint 'it', which tempts writers toward spellings like 'senit'.

How the word is built

• sen- (from senex: old man)
• -ate (noun suffix denoting a body or office)