What does cloture mean?
Cloture is a parliamentary procedure used to end debate on a piece of legislation and move directly to a vote. It is best known in the United States Senate, where it serves as the principal countermeasure to filibustering: when senators prolong debate indefinitely to delay or kill a bill, supporters may file a cloture motion, which, if approved by the required majority, cuts off all further discussion and forces the issue onto the floor. The word can also function as a verb, meaning to apply this procedure. Cloture entered American political vocabulary from French, deriving ultimately from a Latin root meaning 'to shut' or 'to close', and it remains closely tied to formal, institutional language rather than everyday conversation. Because Senate rules historically demanded an extraordinary level of agreement to invoke cloture, the term has come to symbolize both the limits of obstruction and the difficulty of building consensus in a deliberative body. Its British counterpart is known as closure, though the American term is now the more widely recognized internationally.
A parliamentary procedure, especially in the US Senate, for ending debate on an issue and proceeding to a vote.
"The Senate voted to invoke cloture after three days of continuous debate."
Most often encountered in phrases such as 'invoke cloture', 'cloture vote', or 'file for cloture'; the British equivalent is called closure.
To end debate on an issue by applying the cloture procedure.
"The leadership moved to cloture the debate before the session ended."
The plural is rare in practice, since cloture typically refers to the procedure as an institution; it appears mainly when counting individual instances of its invocation.
"The chamber's record shows dozens of clotures attempted over the past decade."
In the US Senate, cloture is the rare superweapon against a filibuster — and it usually takes 60 votes out of 100 to fire it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cloture
Cloture comes from the French noun clôture, meaning a closing or enclosure, derived from the verb clore ('to close'), which traces back to the Latin verb claudere, meaning to shut or bar. The word was adopted into English political vocabulary in the 19th century, when American legislators borrowed the French term to name the procedure for closing debate. It shares its Latin ancestry with words such as close, clause, cloister, and recluse, all of which descend from or were influenced by claudere and its related forms.
Related word forms
How cloture is actually used
The term is strongly associated with formal American legislative contexts, particularly the US Senate, where invoking cloture has historically required a supermajority. In British parliamentary usage, the equivalent term is 'closure'. The word carries connotations of procedural formality rather than everyday speech.
Easily confused with cloture
Closure is the general act of closing something or a sense of emotional resolution, while cloture specifically denotes the legislative procedure for ending debate in a body like the US Senate.