The
Queen-in-Council (during the reign of a male monarch,
King-in-Council) is the technical term of
constitutional law for the exercise of
executive authority in a
Commonwealth realm, denoting the monarch acting by and with the
advice and consent of his or her
privy council (in the
United Kingdom and
Canada's federal jurisdiction) or
executive council (in most other Commonwealth realms, Australian states, and in Canadian provinces). In those realms and dependencies where the Queen's powers and functions are delegated to a
governor-general,
lieutenant governor, or
governor, the term
Governor-General-in-Council,
Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, or
Governor-in-Council may be used instead of Queen-in-Council, respectively, although all of these terms describe the same technical process within constitutional law. "The government of [
jurisdiction]" is commonly used as a synonym for any of the aforementioned terms, though the phrase may mean more than one thing in certain areas.