Bilateral

//baɪˈlætəɹəl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A meeting between two people or groups.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having two sides.

    "General Wego W.K. Chiang, secretary general of the National Security Council, said that the visit of El Salvador Vice President Merino to Taipei on behalf of President Alfredo Cristiani was in response to an invitation of the ROC [Republic of China] Government which hopes to further strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries."

  2. 2
    Involving both sides equally.
  3. 3
    Binding on both of the two parties involved.
  4. 4
    Having bilateral symmetry.
  5. 5
    Involving descent or ascent regardless of sex and side of the family (bilateral linearity).
Adjective
  1. 1
    having two sides or parts wordnet
  2. 2
    affecting or undertaken by two parties wordnet
  3. 3
    having identical parts on each side of an axis wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
multilateraltwo sidedambidextrousambilateralambilateralbifacial

Example

More examples

"What will become of our close relations if the bilateral security treaty expires?"

Etymology

From bi- + lateral.

Related phrases

bilateral descentbilateral gill tramabilateral pneumoniabilateral symmetry

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.