bicameral

What it means

1. not comparableBeing or having a system with two, often unequal, chambers or compartments; of, signifying, relating to, or being the product of such a two-chambered system.

   the bicameral anatomy of the brain

   2 more examples

   By preventing legislative usurpation in the beginning, the bicameral legislature avoids executive usurpation in the end.

   1891, John William Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law, volume 2, page 108

   The legislature (Standeversammlung) is bicameral — the constitution of the co-ordinate chambers being finally settled by a law of 1868 amending the enactment of 1831.

   1911, “Saxony”, in Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition

2. not comparablegovernmentOf, having, or relating to two separate legislative chambers or houses.

   Once the Senate votes, aides said, the first order of business in the bicameral talks will be to set an overall dollar figure […].

   2009 February 9, Carl Hulse, “In Congress, Aides Start to Map Talks on Stimulus”, in New York Times

   Antonyms: unicameral, tricameral

3. not comparablemediaOf a script or typeface: having two cases, upper case and lower case.

   Aspect values on bicameral fonts are based on the size of the lowercase characters.

   2001, Yves Savourel, XML Internationalization and Localization, page 80

   2 more examples

   Bicameral (upper- and lowercase) unserifed roman fonts were apparently first cut in Leipzig in the 1820s.

   2004, Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, version 3.0, page 255

   2004, Parmenides, Peter Koch, et al., Carving the Elements: A Companion to the Fragments of Parmenides, page 91, For more than a thousand years, classical Greek has been habitually written in a bicameral, polytonic alphabet (one with caps and lower case and a set of diacritics marking tone and aspiration).

In a sentence

the bicameral anatomy of the brain

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*dwóh₁
2. Proto-Indo-European*dwi-
3. Proto-Italic*dwi-
4. Latinbi-
5. Englishbi-
6. Proto-Indo-European*kh₂em-
7. Proto-Indo-Iranian*kmárati
8. Proto-Iranian*kamarā
9. Ancient Greekκαμάρα (kamára)
10. Latincamera
11. Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
12. Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
13. Englishbicameral

From bi- + Latin camera (“chamber”) + English -al.