Chambers

How to spell chambers

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chambers

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chambers mean?

1. nounEnclosed rooms or compartments, often private or used for a specific purpose.
2. nounA judge's private office, or a set of rooms used by barristers for their work.

Chambers in a sentence

• The old castle had several hidden chambers behind the great hall.

• The judge summoned both lawyers to her chambers to discuss the matter privately.

• The heart has four chambers that pump blood around the body.

• He joined a leading set of chambers after qualifying as a barrister.

Where does chambers come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of 'chamber', which reached English in the 1200s from the Old French 'chambre', meaning a room or bedroom. That French word came straight from the Latin 'camera', which described a vaulted or arched room, and the Latin itself was borrowed from the Greek 'kamara', meaning anything with an arched or vaulted shape. Over the centuries 'chamber' specialised into several senses: a private room, a hall where a legislative or judicial body meets, and an enclosed space inside a device such as a gun or a pump. The very same Latin 'camera' survives unchanged as the modern word for the photographic device, so 'chamber' and 'camera' are quietly the same word arriving by two different routes. The British and American legal use, meaning a judge's private office or a barrister's set of offices, grew directly out of the older idea of a private room set apart from the public hall.

How the word is built

• chamber (room)
• -s (plural)