"act of Congress" meaning in English

See act of Congress in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-act of Congress.ogg [Australia] Forms: acts of Congress [plural]
Etymology: From the literal sense of act (“legislation”) enacted by US Congress. Etymology templates: {{m|en|act||legislation}} act (“legislation”) Head templates: {{en-noun|acts of Congress}} act of Congress (plural acts of Congress)
  1. (idiomatic, US, chiefly colloquial) Authorization that is extremely difficult to get, especially in a timely fashion. Tags: US, colloquial, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-act_of_Congress-en-noun-kWevQvTv Categories (other): American English
  2. (literally, US politics) A statute enacted by the United States Congress. Tags: US, literally Categories (topical): US politics
    Sense id: en-act_of_Congress-en-noun-TC~nGT4q Topics: government, politics

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for act of Congress meaning in English (2.7kB)

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      "args": {
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        "2": "act",
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  "etymology_text": "From the literal sense of act (“legislation”) enacted by US Congress.",
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        {
          "text": "Does it take an act of Congress just to get a stop sign on a corner?",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Nevada Barr, Liberty Falling, page 79",
          "text": "Should Frederick stick around — and apparently it would take an act of Congress to get him out of the ICU — he might take up where Molly had brutally left off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, E. Lynn Harris, A Love of My Own, page 54",
          "text": "Since it seemed like getting a glass of wine was going to require an act of Congress, I quickly agreed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Bill White with Robert Gandt, Intrepid: The Epic Story of America's Most Legendary Warship, page 273",
          "text": "Another problem was bureaucratic: the transfer of the ship required, literally, an act of Congress. It was an agonizing process that ground along for twenty-six months, through the tenures of three secretaries of the navy, two presidents, and two mayors of New York.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "Authorization that is extremely difficult to get, especially in a timely fashion."
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      "id": "en-act_of_Congress-en-noun-kWevQvTv",
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        "(idiomatic, US, chiefly colloquial) Authorization that is extremely difficult to get, especially in a timely fashion."
      ],
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      "glosses": [
        "A statute enacted by the United States Congress."
      ],
      "id": "en-act_of_Congress-en-noun-TC~nGT4q",
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        "(literally, US politics) A statute enacted by the United States Congress."
      ],
      "tags": [
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        "government",
        "politics"
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          "text": "Does it take an act of Congress just to get a stop sign on a corner?",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Nevada Barr, Liberty Falling, page 79",
          "text": "Should Frederick stick around — and apparently it would take an act of Congress to get him out of the ICU — he might take up where Molly had brutally left off.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, E. Lynn Harris, A Love of My Own, page 54",
          "text": "Since it seemed like getting a glass of wine was going to require an act of Congress, I quickly agreed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2008, Bill White with Robert Gandt, Intrepid: The Epic Story of America's Most Legendary Warship, page 273",
          "text": "Another problem was bureaucratic: the transfer of the ship required, literally, an act of Congress. It was an agonizing process that ground along for twenty-six months, through the tenures of three secretaries of the navy, two presidents, and two mayors of New York.",
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        "(idiomatic, US, chiefly colloquial) Authorization that is extremely difficult to get, especially in a timely fashion."
      ],
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        "A statute enacted by the United States Congress."
      ],
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        "(literally, US politics) A statute enacted by the United States Congress."
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      "tags": [
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-03-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-03-01 using wiktextract (68773ab and 5f6ddbb). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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