British Cabinet
1
3.8
- noun
:
Gabinete británico
- The British Cabinet met to discuss the announcement by Jodrell Bank Observatory that a piece of an asteroid knocked out of orbit by a comet is on possible collision course with Earth.
Examples
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Mr Khama, neither you or I are privy to discussions of the British Cabinet.
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" Permission was requested from the British cabinet; consequently, " to issue the necessary orders should the need arise."
Academic text (1991) -
The JAE was authorized by the British cabinet in 1920 and grew over the next decade into something like an actual government.
Academic text (2002) -
The British cabinet took credit for their intention to bomb only military targets, but clearly they recognized that such discriminations were impossible.
Academic text (1991) -
The threat promised by the British Cabinet if we didn't ratify this treaty.
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We've sent a message to the British Cabinet that will echo and reverberate around the world.
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The British government maintained a secret back channel to the Irish Republican Army even after the IRA had launched a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street that nearly eliminated the entire British cabinet in 1991.
Academic text (2007) -
As the Martians swept toward London, the British Cabinet stayed in session, - - coordinating every item of information that could be gathered, - - passing it on to the UN in New York, and from there to Washington, - - the only remaining unassailed strategic point.
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The turning point probably came in April 1939 when, in the wake of the reckless decision to "guarantee" Poland, the British cabinet felt obliged to massively increase defense spending and to introduce conscription in order to be able to send an army of up to thirty-two divisions to fight on the continent.
Academic text (1993) -
The British Cabinet held an emergency meeting to discuss the national crisis.
Synonyms
260
3.9
A group of senior government ministers who run departments and advise the leader
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derivable from 'British' (relating to Great Britain) + 'cabinet' (a group of senior officials); together they naturally denote the UK government ministers who make major decisions. This compositional pattern is common across languages and follows normal adjective+noun semantics, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand the MWE.
Etymology
British Cabinet comes from an older meaning of cabinet as a 'small private room' where kings or leaders met close advisers. So the word cabinet moved from the room to the small group of top ministers who met there, and British Cabinet now means the government's main decision team.