chair

Meanings

Noun

• An item of furniture used to sit on or in, comprising a seat, legs or wheels, back, and sometimes arm rests, for use by one person. Compare stool, couch, sofa, settee, loveseat and bench.
• Short form of chairperson
• The seating position of a particular musician in an orchestra.
• An iron block used on railways to support the rails and secure them to the sleepers, and similar devices.
• One of two possible conformers of cyclohexane rings (the other being boat), shaped roughly like a chair.
• (the execution device).
• A distinguished professorship at a university.
• A vehicle for one person; either a sedan borne upon poles, or a two-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse; a gig.
• The seat or office of a person in authority, such as a judge or bishop.

Verb

• To act as chairperson at; to preside over.
• To carry in a seated position upon one's shoulders, especially in celebration or victory.
• To award a chair to (a winning poet) at a Welsh eisteddfod.

Origin

• From Middle English chayer, chaire, chaiere, chaere, chayre, chayere, from Old French chaiere, chaere, from Latin cathedra, from Ancient Greek καθέδρα, from κατά + ἕδρα. Displaced native stool and settle, which now have more specialised senses. cathedra, and chaise.