chairman
Americannoun
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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:
FCC chairman Brendan Carr said the agency was doing its part "to secure America's critical supply chains".
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
"We may have a new chairman, but the old guard is now worried about where the economy has moved since the beginning of the year."
From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026
Mr. Arnott is founding chairman of Research Affiliates, an asset management firm based in Newport Beach, Calif.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
He adds that investors should remember the saying of the late Charlie Munger, longtime vice chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: “The big money is not in the buying and selling but in the waiting.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
Cook County’s big experiment began in 1996, a year after a remarkable man named Brendan Reilly came to Chicago to become chairman of the hospital’s Department of Medicine.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
“Fed chairmen don’t get those seven votes just by showing up,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 25, 2026
Indeed, Warsh was less willing than previous Fed chairmen to speculate much on the path of the economy, inflation and interest rates during his first press conference.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026
Most chairmen leave when their terms expire, but they do not have to -- and Powell could remain a governor until 2028.
From Barron's ● Jan. 29, 2026
Her cousin, Martin Edwards, took over when his father died in 1980, and became one of the chairmen who helped form the Premier League.
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
I started calling department chairmen to ask for another week, another ten days—‘more time to reach a decision’— to avoid the decision I would have to make.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
It provides that all legal disputes which may arise between Austria and Czechoslovakia are to be submitted to an impartial commission chairmaned by an appointee of the Swiss Government.
From Time Magazine Archive
At Edinburgh in 1910 he chairmaned the great interdenominational world conference, out of which evolved in 1920 the I.M.C., which he has headed ever since.
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 Lynde, Francis
Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, chairmanned by President Hoover's great & good friend Henry Mauris Robinson, reported a ratio of cash & Governments to deposits of 26%.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 1941 he chairmanned the U.S.O.'s $10 million fund-raising drive.
From Time Magazine Archive
That was bad news for Mississippi's Senator Stephens who was not only up for re-election but also chairmanned the Senate Committee before which the Thorp nomination was pending.
From Time Magazine Archive
Four House Democrats and three Republicans conducted the investigation, chairmanned by Democrat John W. Mc-Cormack of South Boston, precipitated by the anti-Nazi outcries of Democrat Samuel Dickstein of Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
