An assembly or council having the highest deliberative and legislative functions. Specifically:
(a)
(Anc. Rom.) A body of elders appointed or elected from among the nobles of the nation, and having supreme legislative authority. "The senate was thus the medium through which all affairs of the whole government had to pass."
(b)
The upper and less numerous branch of a legislature in various countries, as in France, in the United States, in most of the separate States of the United States, and in some Swiss cantons.
(c)
In general, a legislative body; a state council; the legislative department of government.