Chair

Chair, chār, n. a movable seat for one, with a back to it: a covered vehicle for one person, as a sedan-chair: the seat or office of one in authority, as a judge, a bishop, or the person presiding over any meeting—hence 'to take the chair' = to assume the place of president; 'to address the chair' = to direct one's speech to the chairman; 'to support the chair' = to uphold the authority of the chairman—often, when endangered in a public meeting, asserted by cries of 'Chair!': the seat from which a professor delivers his lectures, the office or function of a professor—'socialists of the chair' = mere doctrinaire or theoretical advocates of socialism: cast-iron supports for rails under the permanent way in a railway, held by wooden wedges, and spiked on to transverse wooden sleepers.—v.t. to place in a seat of authority: to carry publicly in triumph.—n. Chair′-bed, a kind of chair capable of being turned into a bed.—n.pl. Chair′-days (Shak.), used figuratively to denote the evening of life.—ns. Chair′man, the man who takes the chair, or presides at an assembly or meeting: one who carries a sedan or Bath chair; Chair′manship; Chair′-or′gan, a corruption of choir-organ (q.v.); Chair′woman. [Fr. chaire—L.—Gr. kathedra.]