bilateral
adjective
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Since the prefix bi- means "two" in Latin, bilateral means essentially "two-sided". In the days when there were two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union regularly engaged in bilateral arms negotiations; such negotiations are much less common today. Sometimes bilateral refers to two sides of the same thing. A bilateral hip replacement, for instance, replaces both hip bones in the same operation. And bilateral symmetry (a term often used by biologists) refers to the fact that, in many organisms (such as humans), the left side is basically the mirror image of the right side.
Examples of bilateral in a Sentence
Tax Notes Staff, Forbes.com, 5 Aug. 2025
Data from the Indian embassy in Moscow showed bilateral trade between New Delhi and Moscow reached a record $68.7 billion for the year ended March 2025, nearly 5.8 times higher than the pre-pandemic trade of $10.1 billion.
—Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 5 Aug. 2025
Trump could perhaps accept a bilateral meeting with Putin as a sign of progress toward peace.
—Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 4 Aug. 2025
Key trading partners lacking bilateral agreements faced sharply higher rates.
—Hollie Silverman, MSNBC Newsweek, 3 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bilateral
Cite this Entry
“Bilateral.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bilateral. Accessed 8 Aug. 2025.
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