chairman
Americannoun
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chairmen
plural
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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:
Dennis Radtke, chairman of the CDU's employee wing, called Sunday's vote a "watershed moment" and said that "the usual platitudes about a 'bitter evening' and the need for analysis won't cut it".
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
Hans Johnson, the commission’s chairman, heralded the court’s August ruling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
A few months after Mark Walter became the chairman and majority owner of the Dodgers, he was told a fan in one of Dodger Stadium’s upper decks was upset about a mix-up with his tickets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026
“There will be a lot of people in the streets,” said Tshilidzi Sikhwivhilu, local chairman of the National Union of Mineworkers, the biggest union at Venetia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
“Only the trustees can give permission. Four signatures are required: the chairman, plus three other board members.”
From "The Interrupted Tale" by Maryrose Wood
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
The company has now had four chief executives and three chairmen since 2023, including interim roles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
His term as governor doesn’t expire until 2028, and most chairmen step down from the board when their chairmanship ends.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 3, 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
I wrote a note to all the chairmen of English departments who had offered me jobs.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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 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
Except for Joseph Patrick Kennedy, who chairmaned the Commission for its first ten months and got it off to a handsome start, he has been its only boss.
From Time Magazine Archive
As such he supervised the corporation's financial affairs, chairmaned some of its most important committees.
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 Francis Lynde
He took a conspicuous but uninspired part in G. O. Politics, chairmanned the 1930 Senatorial Campaign committee.
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
Because of shrewdly worded British reservations the Import Duties Advisory Committee chairmanned by hatchet-faced, be-monocled Sir George May can up tariffs to protect any British industry which asked protection before the "truce" was signed.
From Time Magazine Archive
Four House Democrats and three Republicans conducted the investigation, chairmanned by Democrat John W. Mc-Cormack of South Boston, precipitated by the anti-Nazi outcries of Democrat Samuel Dickstein of Manhattan.
From Time Magazine Archive
These experts were chairmanned by Sir John Maffey and the official character of the document was so self-evident that the British Foreign Office was constrained to admit its genuineness, although deprecating it as "old."
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.
