chamber

American  

[cheym-ber] / ˈtʃeɪm bər /

noun

• chambers
  plural

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. Law. chambers,

   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

1. of, relating to, or performing chamber music.

   chamber players.

verb (used with object)

• chambers,
  present (3rd person singular)
• chambered,
  past participle,  past
• chambering
  present participle

1. to put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.

2. to provide with a chamber.

chamber British  

/ ˈtʃeɪmbə /

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 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; cavity

   the 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. the freezing room in an abattoir

11. (modifier) of, relating to, or suitable for chamber music

    a chamber concert

---

verb

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

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• underchamber
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• chambers
  plural

Participles

• chambering
  present
• chambered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• chamber
  simple
• chambers
  simple
• have chambered
  perfect
• has chambered
  perfect
• am chambering
  progressive
• are chambering
  progressive
• is chambering
  progressive
• have been chambering
  perfect progressive
• has been chambering
  perfect progressive

Past

• chambered
  simple
• had chambered
  perfect
• was chambering
  progressive
• were chambering
  progressive
• had been chambering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will chamber
  simple
• will have chambered
  perfect
• will be chambering
  progressive
• will have been chambering
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of chamber

1175–1225; Middle English chambre < Old French < Latin camera, variant of camara vaulted room, vault < Greek kamára

Explanation

A chamber is an enclosed space, often where a specific event usually takes place — such as a sleeping chamber or a torture chamber. The history of the word chamber is an interesting one. The Latin word for room was camera. The original word for camera was camera obscura, or "dark chamber," since it was a big black box. Now, the word chamber can refer to any enclosed space — such as the chamber of a gun or the four chambers of your heart.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

chamber chambers chambered chambering

In a new study published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, researchers in Spain took a closer look at chamber three inside tomb TT 209 to understand how the burial space changed over time.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 19, 2026

The chamber of commerce interim president Eliot Lincoln said he didn't want the minimum wage to be scrapped but believed it could not continue to rise in the way it had in previous years.

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026

LACO’s first nine seasons included a Monday night series when the theater, originally meant to be a chamber music hall, was otherwise dark.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

Several House members nevertheless expressed reservations about the bill, suggesting that passage in the lower chamber could be more difficult than in the Senate.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

Whenever I rev my wheels, I can sense Fly jittering in my interior chamber.

From "A Rover's Story" by Jasmine Warga

But during a search of his vehicle, investigators said, they recovered a revolver and additional ammunition, as well as speed loaders, which allow multiple chambers of a gun to be loaded at once.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026

Already set to retire at the end of the year, it’s becoming clear that McConnell is never coming back to the Senate chambers.

From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026

This legislation, which I’m leading in the House of Representatives, passed unanimously from the Senate Commerce Committee and has more than 80 bipartisan co-sponsors across both chambers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

The researchers next placed the larvae inside miniature pressure chambers to determine how much pressure the air sacs could withstand before collapsing.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026

The engineers are figuring out how to arrange the cardboard dividers inside our tomb to make chambers.

From "Merci Suárez Changes Gears" by Meg Medina

The complex family tree of a Neolithic clan buried in a chambered tomb called Hazleton North shows the promise of DNA to reveal ancient relationships.

From Science Magazine ● Oct. 4, 2023

Other sites from the same period in history are close by, and include a stone circle at Torbreck and chambered cairn at Culduthel in Inverness.

From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2023

Maybe some drawings — especially the chambered spaces of domestic interiors, which can be quite complex — are more sophisticated than others in the subtlety of execution, suggesting skill developed over time.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2023

They found a loaded 9mm handgun in the apartment, but the pistol didn’t have any shots chambered at the time police inspected it.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 17, 2023

Somewhere beneath all of that daintiness, chambered in all that neatness, lay the thing that clotted their dreams.

From "Sula" by Toni Morrison

Inspired by a hybrid of several technologies — pneumatics, mechanical springs and hydraulics — the semi-automatic rifle produces almost no recoil by transferring that energy into expelling shells and chambering the next rounds.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 19, 2023

Finally, Benellis are fast, spitting out empties and chambering fresh rounds more quickly than any other auto.

From Time Magazine Archive

The standard chambering for the Triple Lock was the .44 Special, although it was also offered in .38/40 and .45 Long Colt.

From Time Magazine Archive

Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: 14.

From Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) by Alexander Maclaren

Each was armed with one of the new 44-40 Winchesters, just out, and with a brace of Colt's revolvers, chambering the same-sized cartridge as the rifle.

From Blazed Trail Stories and Stories of the Wild Life by Stewart Edward White

Related Words

• apartment
• bedroom
• box
• cell
• cubicle
• hall
• room