cloture
[kloh-cher]U.S. Parliamentary Procedure
- a method of closing a debate and causing an immediate vote to be taken on the question.
Show More
- to close (a debate) by cloture.
Show More
Origin of cloture
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for cloture
Contemporary Examples
The little pests will go on to a supposedly prestigious institution (the Senate) choked in ivy (or cloture debate).
The big turning point in the vote seemed to be when both McConnell and Cornyn supported the cloture vote.
Finally, in 1917, a cloture vote, which could end the filibuster by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, was enacted.
By a 61-30 vote, the Senate voted for cloture Monday evening on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA.
Senators from both parties had already predicted that the authorization to use force in Syria would require a cloture vote.
Historical Examples
If you had asked a Chicagoan, the honorable chairman would have been compelled to resort to cloture before the orator got through.
To prevent this Mr. Mason wishes a rule of cloture (or closure, as it is called in England) adopted.
cloture
- closure in the US Senate
Show More
- (tr) to end (debate) in the US Senate by cloture
Show More
Word Origin
C19: from French clôture, from Old French closure
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for cloture
n.
1871, the French word for "closure, the action of closing," applied to debates in the French Assembly ("action of closing (debate) by will of a majority"), then to the House of Commons and U.S. Congress, from French clôture, from Old French closture (see closure). It was especially used in English by those opposed to the tactic.
In foreign countries the Clôture has been used notoriously to barricade up a majority against the "pestilent" criticism of a minority, and in this country every "whip" and force is employed by the majority to re-assert its continued supremacy and to keep its ranks intact whenever attacked. How this one-sided struggle to maintain solidarity can be construed into "good for all" is inexplicable in the sense uttered. ["The clôture and the Recent Debate, a Letter to Sir J. Lubbock," London, 1882]
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
cloture
[(kloh-chuhr)]
A vote of a legislature used to stop debate on an issue and put the issue to a vote. (See filibuster.)
Show More
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.