council

From Middle English counseil, conseil, from late Old English cuncile, from Anglo-Norman cuncile and Old French concile, from Latin concilium. Doublet of concelho.

• enPR: kounʹ-səl, IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊn.səl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊnsəl
• Homophone: counsel

council (plural councils)

2. A committee that leads or governs (e.g. city council, student council).
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.

   • 2024 November 2, Maryse Zeidler, “Hereditary chiefs slam Vancouver Island city council for remarks on restoring Indigenous place names”, in CBC News‎^[1]:

     The comments were made at a council meeting last month, during which one councillor questioned whether changing the names would be pushing reconciliation efforts along too quickly. […] At a city council meeting on Oct. 8, Campbell River councillors discussed a letter sent by the B.C. Geographical Names Office inviting comments on the name changes.

   1. (UK, metonymic) A local authority.
3. Discussion or deliberation.
   • 2008 [1667], John Milton, chapter 6, in W. Kerrigan, J. Rumrich, S. Fallon, editors, Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) (poetry), Random House Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 212, lines 414–416:

     Satan […] void of rest, / His potentates to council called by night;

   • 1715–1720, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, “Book IV”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:

     O great in action and in council wise.

4. (Christianity) Short for church council

   Synonym: synod

   the First Council of Nicaea

• conciliate
• reconcile