Lake, a lake in SW New York. 18 miles (29 km) long.
a village on this lake: summer educational center.
an annual educational meeting, originating in this village in 1874, providing public lectures, concerts, and dramatic performances during the summer months, usually in an outdoor setting.
(usually lowercase) any similar assembly, especially one of a number meeting in a circuit of communities.
of or relating to a system of education flourishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, originating at Lake Chautauqua, New York.
(usually lowercase) pertaining to a chautauqua.
a chautauqua program.
C19: named after Chautauqua, a lake in New York near which such a school was first held
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Gardeners tend to still-green lawns along Chautauqua Boulevard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 17, 2025
We’d evacuated a few years ago, so they knew that once there’s an evacuation order, Chautauqua and Temescal would be backed up.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
During the trial, Sir Salman recalled how he had been sitting on stage at the historic Chautauqua Institute when he noticed a person rushing at him from his right-hand side.
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2025
Pacific Coast Highway will remain closed between Chautauqua Boulevard and Carbon Beach Terrace until further notice due to the heavy flooding and mudslides, according to the California Department of Transportation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2025
We were soon spinning down the tail of the race, a half-dozen millers waving a "Chautauqua salute" with as many dusty flour-bags, and in ten minutes more had left Rockford out of sight.
From Historic Waterways?Six Hundred Miles of Canoeing Down the Rock, Fox, and Wisconsin Rivers by Thwaites, Reuben Gold
According to some historians, the movement peaked around 1915, when 12,000 communities had hosted a chautauqua.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 2022
Eventually, the word chautauqua became a generic term to describe a range of educational events in rural areas.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 13, 2022
Culver soon zestfully launched a chautauqua, wound up with a military academy.
From Time Magazine Archive
He took out after U.S. criticism, which he said "smells of the pulpit, the chautauqua, the schoolroom."
From Time Magazine Archive
While it greets with waving lilies Bishop Vincent, leader of the great chautauqua movement, it cordially welcomes the priest, the Jew, the Chinaman, the negro, republican, democrat, progressive, prohibitionist, socialist and suffragist.
From Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures by Bain, George W.
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.
