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
A chairman who avoids discussing the outlook can’t explain the committee’s decisions and surrenders a tool for steering it.
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
Lewis Strauss, who had succeeded Dean as AEC chairman, unjustly labeled the boat a likely “Red spy ship,” intensifying the furor in Japan and creating a very public black eye for the American testing program.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
“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
Unlike in the U.S., chairmen of British companies are usually outsiders expected to bring a fresh perspective and the authority to stand up to executives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 2, 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
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
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
As such he supervised the corporation's financial affairs, chairmaned some of its most important committees.
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 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
Before the Appropriations subcommittee chairmanned by Colorado's compact little Senator Adams, Alabama's gift to the drama tossed aside her blue felt hat, perched herself on the table and read a prepared statement.
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
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
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
He took a conspicuous but uninspired part in G. O. Politics, chairmanned the 1930 Senatorial Campaign committee.
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.
