Soon after a presidential election, we begin to hear about the new president elect's potential cabinet picks.

But what exactly is the cabinet?

While the name calls to mind a piece of furniture, and indeed, there is almost certainly a linguistic connection there, in the political context, the term refers to a small group of advisors.

The Constitution doesn't specifically mention the cabinet, but both.

Article two and the 25th amendment refer to the principal officers of the executive departments.

And every president going all the way back to George Washington has formed a cabinet to advise them.

The modern cabinet consists of the Vice President and the heads of the 15 departments within the executive branch.

But this wasn't always the case.

George Washington did not include Vice President John Adams in his cabinet, and the national government was much smaller then.

So Washington's cabinet was made up of just four people the secretaries of State, Treasury, War and the Attorney General.

Over time, as the country grew, so too did the government, and along with it, the cabinet.

As new departments were created, the heads of those new departments joined the cabinet.

However, this growth has not been perfectly linear.

There have been ups and downs.

In the late 1940s, the military was combined into a single department of Defense, and until 1971 the Postmaster General was a member of the president's cabinet, a status which that position no longer holds.

Cabinet level departments can also be split in two, as was the case when the Department of Commerce and Labor became two separate departments, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.

Modern presidents will also give cabinet level status to other high ranking members of their administration.

For example, recent presidents have included the white House Chief of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence.

However, these officials are not formally members of the cabinet in the strictest constitutional sense, nor are they in the line of presidential succession.

Individually, the cabinet level department heads have very real formal legal powers over their respective departments, reporting only to the president.

Though cabinet level departments must be created by an act of Congress.

And Congress does retain some oversight powers when they meet as a group.

However, their role is almost entirely informal.

To advise the president and the president can take or leave that advice as they see fit.

As President George W Bush put it, the president is the decider.

Some presidents have chosen cabinet secretaries who don't necessarily agree with each other, or even with the president, as they think this will provide them with differing opinions and ultimately the best advice.

Other presidents prefer to have cabinet members who will agree with them and simply carry out their orders.

Presidential scholar Richard Ellis argued that presidents will even sometimes have cabinet officials act as lightning rods, taking the blame for failures that may, in fact be the president's fault.

Cabinet appointments are also made for Partizan political reasons and to reflect the diversity of the American people.

14 out of the 15 current department heads have the title Secretary of, followed by the name of the department that they lead.

For example, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Labor.

The only exception is the Attorney General, who oversees the Department of Justice.

But regardless of their title, all 15 are chosen by the president with the advice and consent of the United States Senate.

The Senate can choose not to confirm a president's choice, in which case the president will then have to nominate someone else.

However, it is possible for the president to appoint temporary replacements without the approval of the Senate.

These officials will then have the word acting in front of their titles, unless they're later confirmed by the Senate.

Cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired by the president without the Senate's approval, though usually presidents will ask for a cabinet secretary's resignation rather than fire them outright, though members of the cabinet customarily offer their resignation to a new president when the president who appointed them is leaving office.

Occasionally the incoming president will keep one or more of the predecessor's cabinet appointees, as when President Obama retains Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who had been appointed by George W Bush.

This was all the more remarkable because Bush was a Republican and Obama a Democrat.

Cabinet members can also be impeached and removed by both houses of Congress, but this is extremely rare.

When meeting as a group, the cabinet gathers in a room in the white House, called and wait for it the Cabinet Room.

The members of the cabinet sit around a large table in order of departmental, not personal, seniority.

The president sits at the center of the table.

The Vice President is directly across from them.

The remaining members of the cabinet sit around the table, with those leading the oldest departments closest to the president and those heading up newer departments, or merely with cabinet level status.

Sitting further away from the president, the modern cabinet is arguably too big to serve as the president's real inner circle of closest advisers and cabinet meetings are often called to create a photo op for the president, conveying the image that they're hard at work on a particular problem, or even just to make the president appear presidential.

Smaller subsets of the cabinet, along with other key administration officials, will meet in more in a more private setting.

When the president is truly seeking advice.

The four original cabinet positions State, Treasury, Defense and Justice are still usually considered to be the most important and are sometimes referred to as the inner cabinet.

Many would also include the newest department, the Department of Homeland Security, created in 2002 as part of the modern “Inner Cabinet”.

In addition to leading their respective departments and advising the president, the members of the cabinet are also in the line of presidential succession.

The vice president is constitutionally the first in line.

Should a president die, resign or be impeached and removed.

But according to the Succession Act of 1947, as amended there, followed by the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate, who are in turn followed by the remaining 15 members of the cabinet in the order in which their department was created.

While basing this order on the founding date of the respective departments might have made sense in the past, today, it doesn't necessarily ensure that the most qualified person would act as president in a crisis.

For example, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is ahead of the Secretary of Homeland Security in the line of succession, another unique role of the cabinet.

Indeed, their only formal power as a group is determining, along with the vice president, whether a president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office under the 25th amendment.

If the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet believe that the president is unable to discharge their powers and duties, the Vice President immediately takes over as acting president until Congress can make a final determination.

Well, this is never happened.

It has been reported that some cabinet members have talked with each other and even discussed with the Vice president the possibility of invoking the 25th amendment on more than one occasion.

Though not explicitly in the Constitution, the cabinet has nonetheless become an important and enduring institution in our political system.

And now, the next time someone mentions the cabinet, you'll know they aren't talking about where the president stores their dishes.