[a. L. veto I forbid (1st pers. sing. pres. ind. of vetāre), the word by which the Roman tribunes of the people opposed measures of the Senate or actions of the magistrates. Hence also F., Sp., Pg., It. veto.]
1. A prohibition having for its object or result the prevention of a proposed or intended act; the power of thus preventing or checking action by prohibition. Freq. in phr. to put (also place, set) a veto on or upon (something).
1629. Sir W. Mure, True Crucifix, 1108. Hee who doth exalt Himselfe to raigne,… Dare gainst this Law most impudently stand, And God’s great Veto boldly counter-mand.
1654. Trapp, Comm., Zach. ii. 13. God … refraineth the remainder of mans wrath…. If he do but … interpose his Veto.
1788. H. Walpole, Remin., in Lett. (1857), I. p. cxviii. They persuaded her to demand of the new King an earl’s coronet for Lord Bathurst. She did—the Queen put in her veto, and Swift … returned to Ireland [etc.].
1794. U. Price, Ess. Picturesque, I. 43, note. Had I not advanced too far to think of retreating, I might possibly have been deterred by so absolute a veto from such authority.
1809. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1859), I. 139/1. It is not the practice with destroyers of vermin to allow the little victims a veto upon the weapons used against them.
1837. Lockhart, Scott, III. x. 323. Upon this ingenious proposition Scott at once set his veto.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, xxiv. The Rector had beforehand put a veto on any Dissenting chairman.
1867. Baker, Nile Tribut., xv. (1872), 255. They were much displeased at my immediately placing a veto upon their bloody intentions.
transf. 1865. Mozley, Mirac., iii. 73. Confounding the resistance of impression to a miracle with the veto of reason.
2. spec. The act, on the part of a competent person or body, of preventing or checking legislative or other political action by the exercise of a prohibitory power; the right or power to interpose prohibition against the passing, or putting in force, of an enactment or measure.
[1759. E. W. Montagu, Anc. Republics, 372. The Carthaginian constitution, where the single, Veto, of one discontented senator, referr’d the decision of the most important affair to a wrong-headed, ungovernable populace.]
1792. A. Young, Trav. France, 127. I was … answered, that the King of France must have no veto on the will of the nation.
1806. Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), p. xxviii. In fact, though the king possessed no veto, yet … nothing could come before parliament which could require his negative.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., I. 87. He deprived the plebeian tribunes of every prerogative except the veto, which he restricted to certain cases.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1868), II. xii. 112. It could neither enact its own decrees nor interpose a veto on the decrees of the Governor.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., I. xvi. 232. The President’s veto kills off some vicious measures.
b. Without article.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. VII. i. Journalism is busy, France rings with Veto.
1879. M. Arnold, Mixed Ess., Irish Cathol., 124. The bishops claimed … the right of veto on the appointment of professors.
3. attrib., as veto power, proposition, etc.
Veto Act, an act of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, passed in 1834, providing that no minister should be presented to a parish against the wish of the congregation.
1838. Edinb. Christian Instructor, Jan., 47. Cases of Tain and Strathbogie.—Veto Act.
1840. in Acts Gen. Assembly (1843), 1103. The act anent calls, called the Veto Act.
1861. W. J. Fitz-Patrick, Life Doyle (1880), I. 163. The friends of the Catholic claims bad abandoned the old veto propositions.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Nov., 941/2. While it did not give them actual control, [it] allowed the exercise of a veto power somewhat akin to it.
