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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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:
Posting on their social media on Friday, Villa released a statement signed by their chairman Nassef Sawiris accusing Carragher of insulting the Premier League side and its fans.
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
The centre is the vision of 31-year-old Anant Ambani, youngest son of one of Asia's richest men Mukesh Ambani, chairman of retail-to-refining giant Reliance Industries.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
The 10-year Treasury yield has surged 42.4 basis points since the day before Warsh was sworn in as Fed chairman on May 22.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 29, 2026
Tim Cook, Apple’s executive chairman, compared escalating memory chip prices to a “100-year flood.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026
The former chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns, and a Wall Street legend, Greenberg still kept an office at the firm and acted as a broker for a handful of presumably special investors.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
The test of the Warsh Fed, as with all chairmen, is whether the central bank achieves and maintains price stability.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
“Fed chairmen don’t get those seven votes just by showing up,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 25, 2026
The company has now had four chief executives and three chairmen since 2023, including interim roles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
Before you get to that stage, however, club owners and chairmen will rely on their sporting director and chief executive to compile a list of names.
From BBC ● Apr. 3, 2026
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
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
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
The Senate committee, chairmaned by Florida's New-Dealing Pepper, proposed to do something to better the nation's health.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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
Owen D. Young chairmanned a committee to raise $1.000,000.
From Time Magazine Archive
At Yale he played some football, some golf, chairmanned the Yale Graphic.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
His plan: an Industry Council made up of an equal number of representatives from management and S. W. O. C., chairmanned by a Government man.
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
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