chambers

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See also: Chambers

English

WOTD – 19 January 2023

Etymology

The Chief Justice’s chambers (sense 2.1) in the Old Supreme Court Building, Singapore.

From chamber +‎ -s (suffix forming pluralia tantum and regular plurals of nouns, and the third-person singular simple present indicative forms of verbs).[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

chambers pl (plural only)

  1. (archaic) A set of rooms in a building used as an office or a residential apartment.
    • 1765, Oliver Goldsmith, “The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to Lord Clare”, in [Thomas Evans], editor, The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. , volume I, London: H Goldney, for Messieurs Rivington, , published 1780, →OCLC, page 83:
      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; […]
    • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Three. The Second of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, , →OCLC, page 109:
      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.
    • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC, page 2:
      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.
    • 1932, John Galsworthy, chapter III, in Flowering Wilderness , London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 19:
      [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.
    • 2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game of Thrones Slows Down for the Longest, and Best, Episode of the Season (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-26:
      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.
  2. (by extension, law)
    1. Chiefly in in chambers: a judge's private office which is used for hearings that do not need to be held in open court.
    2. (British) 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.
      • 1676 December 11 (first performance), [William] Wycherley, The Plain-Dealer. A Comedy. , London: T N for James Magnes and Rich Bentley , published 1677, →OCLC, Act II, page 32:
        [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.
      • 1712 July 1 (Gregorian calendar), [Thomas Tickell], “FRIDAY, June 20, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 410; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 25:
        […] I dismissed my coach at the gate, and tripped it down to my counsel's chambers; for lawyer's fees take up too much of a small disputed jointure to admit any other expenses but mere necessaries.
        The spelling has been modernized.
      • 1791, James Boswell, “”, in James Boswell, editor, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. , volume I, London: Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, , →OCLC, page 134:
        They rapped violently at the door of his [Samuel Johnson's] chambers in the Temple, till at laſt he appeared in his ſhirt, vvith his little black vvig on the top of his head, inſtead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that ſome ruffians vvere coming to attack him.
      • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Knights of the Temple”, in The History of Pendennis. , volume I, London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849, →OCLC, page 290:
        Nevertheless, these venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag and the Winged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of the rough comforts and freedom, which men always remember with pleasure. I don't know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, […] but the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, […] old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman [James Boswell] at his heels on their way to Dr. [Oliver] Goldsmith's chambers in Brick Court; […]
      • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Which Had Nearly Been the Last of the Story”, in The History of Pendennis. , volume II, London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1850, →OCLC, page 120:
        To be well in chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill in chambers— […] —this, indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors, and shall only heartily pity those bachelors in the Temple, who brave it every day.
  3. 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”).
  4. (British, historical) 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.
  5. A midmorning break at Eton College.
    • 1889, Sir H. C. Maxwell Lyte, A History of Eton College, 1440-1884 (page 372)
      Drury presented himself at Chambers before 11 o'clock school one day with a conspicuous black eye.

Translations

Noun

chambers

  1. plural of chamber

Verb

chambers

  1. third-person singular simple present indicative of chamber

References

  1. ^ Compare “chamber, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “chamber, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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