Both Uses of
parliament
in
The Railway Children
- Mother wrote several letters to people she thought might know whereabouts in England a Russian gentleman's wife and family might possibly be; not to the people she used to know before she came to live at Three Chimneys — she never wrote to any of them — but strange people — Members of Parliament and Editors of papers, and Secretaries of Societies.†
p. 103.8parliament = legislative assembly that passes laws (existing in some countries)
- All the Editors and Secretaries of Societies and Members of Parliament had answered Mother's letters as politely as they knew how; but none of them could tell where the wife and children of Mr Szczepansky would be likely to be.†
p. 123.3 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(parliament with a lowercase "p") a legislative assembly in certain countries (that can pass laws)
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
As a proper noun, you need to look at the context to determine the parliament to which Parliament is referring. For example, it could be the British Parliament, the European Union Parliament, the French Parliament, etc.