Meaning & use
bicameral
Last updated
Meaning
adjectivenot comparableformal
Describing a lawmaking body that is made up of two separate chambers or houses.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a bicameral legislature; Congress is bicameral.
Patterns
- a bicameral legislature
- be bicameral
The United States Congress is bicameral because it has a Senate and a House of Representatives.
Many countries prefer a bicameral parliament to spread power more widely.
A bicameral system lets one house review the decisions of the other.
Common combinations
- bicameral legislature
- Australia has a bicameral legislature made up of two houses.
- bicameral system
- A bicameral system makes it harder to pass laws in a hurry.
- bicameral parliament
- The new constitution created a bicameral parliament.
- bicameral structure
- The state's bicameral structure mirrors the federal one.
- bicameral Congress
- The bicameral Congress requires both houses to approve a bill.
Synonyms and how they differ
- two-chamber
- Two-chamber is the plain-English version and is more common in British newspapers than the formal word bicameral.
- two-house
- Two-house is a simple, descriptive alternative that avoids the technical Latin-based term.
Opposites
Word family
- bicameralism noun
- the system of having two legislative chambers
- unicameral adjective
- having a single legislative chamber
- chamber noun
- one of the houses of a legislature
- tricameral adjective
- having three chambers
Commonly confused: bicameral or bipartisan?
bicameral vs bipartisan
Bipartisan means involving two political parties, whereas bicameral refers to two chambers of a legislature, however many parties exist.
Practice
The country's parliament is ___ because it has an upper house and a lower house.
Choose one answer.
Bicameral means having two chambers. Unicameral is the opposite, and bipartisan refers to parties, not houses.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bicameral”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.