A council, assembly, or meeting, especially in Roman or ecclesiastical contexts; a formal gathering for deliberation.
Latin word meaning assembly or council, from con- (together) and -cilium (possibly related to celer, swift, or to calare, to call). The word entered English from medieval Latin ecclesiastical usage.
This is the Latin original from which most of our 'concil-' words spring. When medieval church documents use 'concilium,' they're speaking Latin gravitas—it's the word that launched the Protestant Reformation's theological debates about church authority.
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