chamber

American  

[chaym-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.

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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

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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

But not all seats in each chamber are competitive.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

The hope is that the only battles which take place in the coming days are in the Belfast courtroom and the Stormont chamber, and not on the streets of Portadown.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

When Trump was elected in November 2024, Castillo—who owns a security company in Myanmar—was president of AmCham Myanmar, as the chamber is known.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

Iron and magnesium tend to become concentrated near the bottom of a magma chamber, while more soluble elements such as potassium remain closer to the top.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026

I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

Stakeholders currently are defined as anyone who lives, works or owns real property within the neighborhood boundaries, or community organizations like chambers of commerce or nonprofits.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

Cue the CRA, which lets lawmakers overturn a regulation with a simple majority vote of both chambers and the President’s signature.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026

The groups can be "echo chambers where everyone just spins each other out about their kids", he says, and suggests having a proper conversation with your child about boundaries, before university starts.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026

People with higher inflammation tended to have thicker heart walls, smaller heart chambers and poorer heart filling - all changes which may develop quietly for years before progressing to heart failure.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 2026

I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers.

From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë

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

The strike of the hammer on the chambered shell needs a specific amount of force to detonate the primer.

From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2023

But his eyes are gray and chambered and shallow, and after a moment he returns to his spirals.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

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

A saw gumming, gulleting or chambering machine to be operated by hand, and constructed by Henry Disston & Sons, is illustrated in Fig.

From Modern Machine-Shop Practice, Volumes I and II by Joshua Rose

Let us walk honestly, as in the Day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy.

From Old Groans and New Songs Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes by Frederick Charles Jennings

Related Words

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