chambers
/ˈt͡ʃeɪmbɚz/
Frequency: 4.06 in modern English
Meaning
noun
Chiefly in in chambers: a judge's private office which is used for hearings that do not need to be held in open court.
noun
Originally, a set of rooms at an Inn of Court used by one or more barristers as an office and residence; now, the office of one or more barristers in any building.
British usage
noun
Euphemistic form of chamber pot (“a container used for defecation and urination”); also, synonym of potty (“a small (chiefly plastic) pot used by children for defecation and urination when toilet-training”).
noun
In full king's chambers: parts of the sea next to the coast of England and Wales delimited by imaginary lines connecting headlands, over which the Crown asserted exclusive jurisdiction; these have now been superseded by the concept of the territorial sea.
British usage
noun
A midmorning break at Eton College.
Example Sentences
- "Thanks, my lord, for your veniſon, for finer or fatter / Never rang'd in a foreſt, or ſmoak'd in a platter; / […] / I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, / To be ſhevvn to my friends as a piece of virtu; […]"
- "I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him."
- "He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me."
- "[A]s a rule the chambers were occupied only by Stack, who had been Wilfrid's batman in the war, and had for him one of those sphinx-like habits which wear better than expressed devotions."
- "So Tyrion [Lannister] hatches one last brilliant scheme in a season full of them, and this one goes exactly as well as all the others, even if it doesn’t look like it at first. He alone takes a meeting with Cersei [Lannister], in her chambers, with the Mountain [Gregor Clegane] ready and waiting to dispatch him."
- "[B]e you mannerly to her, becauſe you are to pretend only to be her Squire, to arm her to her Lavvyers Chambers; but I vvill be impudent and baudy, for ſhe muſt love and marry me."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈt͡ʃeɪmbɚz/
- British English: /ˈt͡ʃeɪmbəz/
Usage
- Archaic
- British usage
- Countable
- Uncountable