chair

🪑

Meaning

1. 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.
2. Clipping of chairperson.
3. The seating position of a particular musician in an orchestra.
4. An iron block used on railways to support the rails and secure them to the sleepers, and similar devices.
5. One of two possible conformers of cyclohexane rings (the other being boat), shaped roughly like a chair.
6. (informal) Ellipsis of electric chair (“device used for performing execution”).
7. A distinguished professorship at a university.
8. A vehicle for one person; either a sedan borne upon poles, or a two-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse; a gig.
9. The seat or office of a person in authority, such as a judge or bishop.
10. An assigned position in a beauty salon or barbershop.

death chair

sedan-chair

small table

kep

cross arm

lug support

Job Title

carrier frame

base seat

case of fit

cage kep

folding board

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/t͡ʃɛə(ɹ)/

From Middle English chayer, chaire, chaiere, chaere, chayre, chayere, from Old French chaiere, chaere, from Latin cathedra (“seat”), from Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra), from κατά (katá, “down”) + ἕδρα (hédra, “seat”). Displaced native stool and settle, which now have more specialised senses. Doublet of cathedra and chaise.