chairman
Americannoun
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chairmen
plural
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the presiding officer of a meeting, committee, board, etc.
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the administrative head of a department in a high school, college, or university.
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someone employed to carry or wheel a person in a chair.
verb (used with object)
noun
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Also called: chairperson, chairwoman. a person who presides over a company's board of directors, a committee, a debate, an administrative department, etc
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history someone who carries a sedan chair
Usage
Chairman can seem inappropriate when applied to a woman, while chairwoman can be offensive. Chair and chairperson can be applied to either a man or a woman; chair is generally preferred to chairperson
Gender
Is it chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson? See chairperson.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of chairman
Explanation
A chairman is the leader of a business meeting or group. The chairman often opens a meeting by addressing the group and explaining what the agenda will be. Charities, clubs, and the boards of companies have a chairman who acts as president or leader. The noun chairman can refer to this person, whether male or female, though sometimes a woman is called a chairwoman. These days, it's more common still to simply call her (or him) a chair. The word chairman comes from a sense of "occupying a chair of authority," while "presiding member of a corporate body" first emerged in the 18th century.
Vocabulary lists containing chairman
The Legislative Branch, Sections 4–6
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Stuart Little
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“The idea that the new, the 17th chairman of the Federal Reserve is going to act like the 13th, 14th, or 15th, there’s no status quo ante to return to,” said Warsh.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
Peter Crist, chairman of executive-recruitment firm Crist Kolder Associates, who previously worked at Korn Ferry, said the memo overstepped in its analysis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
He insisted that the occasions he dined with Man City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak at matches at the Etihad in 2017 and 2018 were "included" in a statement issued by the local authority on Monday.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
Rice was most recently chairman of Walt Disney Television and chairman of General Entertainment for Walt Disney Co.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 15, 2026
The chairman of the Stanford Department of Neurology thought he’d lost his mind and told him to take a year to think it over, but he’d already thought it over.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
New Federal Reserve chairmen don’t come around often.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
“Fed chairmen don’t get those seven votes just by showing up,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 25, 2026
Sullivan and Gold became joint chairmen of West Ham when they completed their takeover of the club in January 2010.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
Earlier Fed chairmen have worked to further Fed independence and accountability by bolstering the role of the Federal Reserve Banks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
I wrote a note to all the chairmen of English departments who had offered me jobs.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Except for Joseph Patrick Kennedy, who chairmaned the Commission for its first ten months and got it off to a handsome start, he has been its only boss.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Senate committee, chairmaned by Florida's New-Dealing Pepper, proposed to do something to better the nation's health.
From Time Magazine Archive
In Manhattan last week famed, forthright Physiologist Anton J. Carlson of the University of Chicago chairmaned a meeting aimed at overcoming this situation.
From Time Magazine Archive
As such he supervised the corporation's financial affairs, chairmaned some of its most important committees.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was late in the afternoon of the same day that the Federative Council sent its committee, chairmaned by Engineer Scott, to interview the ex-general manager at his rooms in the Clarendon.
From The Grafters by Francis Lynde
Directly behind the 13-man labor committee, chairmanned by Utah's bald and scholarly Elbert Duncan Thomas, sat Mrs. Taft placidly knitting on a sweater for a grandson.
From Time Magazine Archive
These experts were chairmanned by Sir John Maffey and the official character of the document was so self-evident that the British Foreign Office was constrained to admit its genuineness, although deprecating it as "old."
From Time Magazine Archive
In London the German and Italian Ambassadors fortnight ago showed the solidarity of Berlin and Rome by arriving together for sessions of the increasingly farcical International Committee for Non-intervention chairmanned by Lord Plymouth.
From Time Magazine Archive
Appointed was a special committee, chairmanned by Representative Joseph B. Shannon, Kansas City lawyer and onetime pin boy in a beer garden bowling alley.
From Time Magazine Archive
He took a conspicuous but uninspired part in G. O. Politics, chairmanned the 1930 Senatorial Campaign committee.
From Time Magazine Archive
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