a. [f. BI- pref.2 1 + L. camera chamber + -AL 1; L. had bicamerātus.] Having two (legislative) chambers. Bicamerist, an advocate of two legislative chambers.
1795. Crit. Rev., XIV. 486. The bicamerists of La Fayette.
a. 1832. Bentham is cited by Webster.
1837. Athenæum, 11 Nov., 829/3. Whether the [Hungarian] Diet ought to be regarded as a Uni-cameral or Bi-cameral assembly.
1839. F. Lieber, Man. Pol. Ethics, II. 537. Little more than the outward form of the bicameral system is obtained.
1863. Sat. Rev., 31 Jan., 140/1. The absence of the estate of the clergy reduced our Houses to two, and thus, by the merest accident, created that ‘bi-cameral’ system which the rest of the world has been content to imitate.
1872. Freeman, Growth Eng. Const., ii. 93. The form of government which political writers call bi-cameral … arose out of one of the accidents of English History.
1884. Goldw. Smith, in Choice Lit., 388/2. The only valid argument in favor of the retention of the House of Lords is, in fact, the difficulty which the Bi-Camerists find in devising anything to be put in its place.
