curule chair

American  

noun

1. (in ancient Rome) a folding seat with curved legs and no back, often ornamented with ivory, used only by certain high officials.

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curule chair British  

noun

1. an upholstered folding seat with curved legs used by the highest civil officials of ancient Rome

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Etymology

Origin of curule chair

First recorded in 1775–85

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

curule chair

The solemn, awful, inexorable literary Rhadamanthus, the dread Quarterly Review itself, sitting imposingly on its curule chair in ambrosial bigwig and high-heeled shoes, promulgated edicts against the new-fangled invention.

From Time Magazine Archive

Her seat, as she spoke, might have been a curule chair.

From Coming Home 1916 by Wharton, Edith

The vacant throne by the side of the curule chair of Romulus points to the time when there was only one king, and represents the equal but quiescent right of the other people.

From The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 01 by Rudd, John

Again Lentulus was in his curule chair, and again the solemn farce of taking the auspices, preparatory to commencing the session, was gone through.

From A Friend of Caesar A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by Davis, William Stearns

This morning he appointed me regent head of the house, and delivered me the fasces and curule chair.

From Translations from the German (Vol 3 of 3) Tales by Musaeus, Tieck, Richter by Carlyle, Thomas