cross-bencher
See also: crossbencher
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom cross-bench + -er.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editcross-bencher (plural cross-benchers)
- (politics) A member of the British House of Lords or the Senate of Canada or Australia who sits on a cross-bench, or who proclaims independence or political neutrality.
- 2007, Bruce Ackerman, “Meritocracy v. Democracy”, in London Review of Books, volume 29, number 5, page 9:
- Putting the hereditary nobility to one side, the life peers, and especially the cross-benchers, carry on an older, less narrowly professional tradition of distinguished service: rule by the ‘great and the good’, if not necessarily the best and brightest.
Further reading
edit- “cross-bencher”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.