chamber

noun

1. a room, usually private, in a house or apartment, especially a bedroom: She retired to her chamber.
2. a room in a palace or official residence.
3. the meeting hall of a legislative or other assembly.
4. chambers, Law.
   1. a place where a judge hears matters not requiring action in open court.
   2. the private office of a judge.
   3. (in England) the quarters or rooms that lawyers use to consult with their clients, especially in the Inns of Court.
5. a legislative, judicial, or other like body: the upper or the lower chamber of a legislature.
6. an organization of individuals or companies for a specified purpose.
7. the place where the moneys due a government are received and kept; a treasury or chamberlain’s office.
8. (in early New England) any bedroom above the ground floor, generally named for the ground-floor room beneath it.
9. a compartment or enclosed space; cavity: a chamber of the heart.
10. (in a canal or the like) the space between any two gates of a lock.
11. a receptacle for one or more cartridges in a firearm, or for a shell in a gun or other cannon.
12. (in a gun) the part of the barrel that receives the charge.
13. chamber pot.

adjective

14. of, relating to, or performing chamber music: chamber players.

verb (used with object)

15. to put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.
16. to provide with a chamber.

noun

1. a meeting hall, esp one used for a legislative or judicial assembly
2. a reception room or audience room in an official residence, palace, etc
3. archaic, or poetic a room in a private house, esp a bedroom
4. 1. a legislative, deliberative, judicial, or administrative assembly
   2. any of the houses of a legislature
5. an enclosed space; compartment; cavitythe smallest chamber in the caves
6. the space between two gates of the locks of a canal, dry dock, etc
7. an enclosure for a cartridge in the cylinder of a revolver or for a shell in the breech of a cannon
8. obsolete a place where the money of a government, corporation, etc, was stored; treasury
9. short for chamber pot
10. NZ the freezing room in an abattoir
11. (modifier) of, relating to, or suitable for chamber musica chamber concert

verb

12. (tr) to put in or provide with a chamber

n.

c.1200, “room,” usually a private one, from Old French chambre “room, chamber, apartment,” also used in combinations to form words for “latrine, privy” (11c.), from Late Latin camera “a chamber, room” (see camera). In anatomy from late 14c.; of machinery from 1769. Gunnery sense is from 1620s. Meaning “legislative body” is from c.1400. Chamber music (1789) was that meant to be performed in private rooms instead of public halls.

v.

late 14c., “to restrain,” also “to furnish with a chamber” (inplied in chambered, from chamber (n.). Related: Chambering.

n.

1. A compartment or enclosed space.