council, counsel

• council [from com- + calare 'to call'] 会议; 议会; 委员会
• counsel [from consilium, consulere; consult] 劝告; 建议

A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or national level are not considered councils. At such levels, there may be no separate executive branch, and the council may effectively represent the entire government. A board of directors might also be denoted as a council. A committee might also be denoted as a council, though a committee is generally a subordinate body composed of members of a larger body, while a council may not be. Because many schools have a student council, the council is the form of governance with which many people are likely to have their first experience as electors or participants.

A member of a council may be referred to as a councillor or councilperson, or by the gender-specific titles of councilman and councilwoman.

A counsel or a counsellor at law is a person who gives advice and deals with various issues, particularly in legal matters. It is a title often used interchangeably with the title of lawyer.

The word counsel can also mean advice given outside of the context of the legal profession.

The legal system in England uses the term counsel as an approximate synonym for a barrister-at-law, but not for a solicitor, and may apply it to mean either a single person who pleads a cause, or collectively, the body of barristers engaged in a case.

The difference between "Barrister" and "Counsel" is subtle. "Barrister" is a professional title awarded by one of the four Inns of Court [律师学院], and is used in a barrister's private, academic or professional capacity. "Counsel" is used to refer to a barrister who is instructed on a particular case. It is customary to use the third person when addressing a barrister instructed on a case: "Counsel is asked to advise" rather than "You are asked to advise".

The legal term counsellor, or more fully, counsellor-at-law, became practically obsolete in England, but continued in use locally in Ireland,[1] as an equivalent to barrister, where a Senior Counsel (S.C.) is equivalent to the English Queen's Counsel (Q.C.)

六级/考研单词: counsel, consult, deliberate, legislate, province, nationwide, denote, subordinate, compose, advice, issue, illicit, seldom, synonym, solicit, plead, engage, differentiate, subtle, inn, instruct, tertiary, equivalent