chamber

[cheym-ber] /ˈtʃeɪm bər/
noun
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.
chambers, Law.
  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
14.
of, pertaining to, or performing chamber music:
chamber players.
verb (used with object)
15.
to put or enclose in, or as in, a chamber.
16.
to provide with a chamber.
Origin
1175-1225; Middle English chambre < Old French < Latin camera, variant of camara vaulted room, vault < Greek kamára
Related forms
underchamber, noun
Examples from the web for chamber
  • EU business has always been more about the horse-trading of the committee room than about the rhetoric of the debating chamber.
  • And so a small crowd gathered in an elegant back room chamber at the museum.
  • The jolts continue in the legislative chamber one floor below, where the upholstery is of seal skin.
  • Consider the amount of energy that volcanoes bring up from a small magma chamber close to the surface.
  • Then they took me to a little torture chamber where there was a small bed.
  • Taking no chances, they put on airtight moon suits and disappeared into a sealed examining chamber to work on the body.
  • To propel the vehicle, compressed air from the tanks is injected into a small chamber, where it expands and cools.
  • The device, made of acrylic, has a small reaction chamber fed and cleaned via tiny inlet and outlet channels.
  • Minutes after birth, a squid begins circulating seawater through a hollow chamber in its body.
  • chamber music, as its name implies, is music meant to be performed in chamber-size rooms.
British Dictionary definitions for chamber

chamber

/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 or poetic) 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.
(NZ) the freezing room in an abattoir
11.
(modifier) of, relating to, or suitable for chamber music: a chamber concert
verb
12.
(transitive) to put in or provide with a chamber
See also chambers
Word Origin
C13: from Old French chambre, from Late Latin camera room, Latin: vault, from Greek kamara
Word Origin and History for chamber
n.

c.1200, "room," usually a private one, from Old French chambre "room, chamber, apartment," also used in combinations to form words for "latrine, privy" (11c.), from Late Latin camera "a chamber, room" (see camera). In anatomy from late 14c.; of machinery from 1769. Gunnery sense is from 1620s. Meaning "legislative body" is from c.1400. Chamber music (1789) was that meant to be performed in private rooms instead of public halls.

v.

late 14c., "to restrain," also "to furnish with a chamber" (inplied in chambered, from chamber (n.). Related: Chambering.

chamber in Medicine

chamber cham·ber (chām'bər)
n.
A compartment or enclosed space.

chamber in the Bible

"on the wall," which the Shunammite prepared for the prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4:10), was an upper chamber over the porch through the hall toward the street. This was the "guest chamber" where entertainments were prepared (Mark 14:14). There were also "chambers within chambers" (1 Kings 22:25; 2 Kings 9:2). To enter into a chamber is used metaphorically of prayer and communion with God (Isa. 26:20). The "chambers of the south" (Job 9:9) are probably the constelations of the southern hemisphere. The "chambers of imagery", i.e., chambers painted with images, as used by Ezekiel (8:12), is an expression denoting the vision the prophet had of the abominations practised by the Jews in Jerusalem.