From Middle English senat, from Old French senat, from Latin senātus (“council of elders; a senate”), from senex (“old”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛnɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛnət/, /ˈsɛnɪt/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈsenət/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnɪt, -ɛnət

senate (plural senates)

1. In some bicameral legislative systems, the upper house or chamber.
2. A group of experienced, respected, wise individuals serving as decision makers or advisors in a political system or in institutional governance, as in a university, and traditionally of advanced age.
   • 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, canto 11, stanza 13, lines 4338-9:

     Before the Tyrant's throne
     All night his aged Senate sate.

3. In Germany, the executive branch of government in the city states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg; the governments of cities that were part of the Hanseatic League; and the bench in a higher appellate court.

• → Swahili: seneti

• “senate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “senate”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

• Santee, atenes, enates, ensate, sateen, tenase