LEGISLATOR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does legislator mean? 

• LEGISLATOR (noun)
  The noun LEGISLATOR has 1 sense:

1. someone who makes or enacts laws

  Familiarity information: LEGISLATOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEGISLATOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who makes or enacts laws

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("legislator" is a kind of...):

lawgiver; lawmaker (a maker of laws; someone who gives a code of laws)

politician (a leader engaged in civil administration)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "legislator"):

backbencher (a member of the House of Commons who is not a party leader)

congressman; congresswoman; representative (a member of the United States House of Representatives)

crossbencher (a member of the House of Commons who does not vote regularly with either the government or the Opposition)

deputy (a member of the lower chamber of a legislative assembly (such as in France))

filibuster; filibusterer (a legislator who gives long speeches in an effort to delay or obstruct legislation that he (or she) opposes)

floor leader (the legislator who organizes his party's strategy)

frontbencher (a member of the House of Commons who is a minister in the government or who holds an official position in an opposition party)

majority leader (leader of the majority party in a legislature)

minority leader (leader of the minority party in a legislature)

Member of Parliament; Parliamentarian (an elected member of the British Parliament: a member of the House of Commons)

senator (a member of a senate)

party whip; whip (a legislator appointed by the party to enforce discipline)

Instance hyponyms:

Benton; Old Bullion; Thomas Hart Benton (United States legislator who opposed the use of paper currency (1782-1858))

Derivation:

legislate (make laws, bills, etc. or bring into effect by legislation)

legislatorship (the office of legislator)

 Context examples 

Of course, one can argue that insurance companies aren't European legislators and they aren't necessarily professors who are analysing the issue from a scientific point of view, but still... sometimes, they are ahead of us.

(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)

His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)