Mother of Parliaments
Britishnoun
Etymology
Origin of Mother of Parliaments
C19: first used of England in 1865 by John Bright (1811–89), British Liberal statesman
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Nor are stable and effective minority governments unknown in Commonwealth countries that can trace their parliamentary and governance systems back to "the Mother of Parliaments" in Westminster.
From BBC • Apr. 28, 2015
This reverence for heritage is amplified by that often mis-applied phrase, The Mother of Parliaments.
From BBC • Mar. 29, 2015
They asked the "Mother of Parliaments" to tide them over with a loan of $402,000 and to guarantee their liabilities, this to stop a run which had started on the Bank.
From Time Magazine Archive
As Churchill served notice that he intended to propose a vote of censure this week, the Mother of Parliaments was not exactly furnishing to younger democracies an example of deliberative calm.
From Time Magazine Archive
In one stormy decade he tore the cloak from the Mother of Parliaments, reducing her to a plain-speaking democratic machine.
From The Glories of Ireland by Lennox, P. J.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
