Chapter

How to spell chapter

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce chapter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chapter mean?

1. nounA main division of a book, usually numbered or titled.
2. nounA distinct period or episode in someone's life or history.
3. nounA local branch of a society, club, or fraternity.

Chapter in a sentence

• The final chapter of the novel ties up every loose thread.

• Moving abroad opened a new chapter in her career.

• He joined the local chapter of the engineering society.

• She read one chapter each night before sleep.

• The merger closed a difficult chapter for the company.

• The charity opened a new chapter in the city last month.

Where does chapter come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Chapter comes from the Latin capitulum, a diminutive of caput meaning 'head', so it literally meant 'a little head' and then a heading or short title placed at the top of a section. As scribes divided long texts into labelled parts, capitulum came to mean the section itself rather than just its heading. The word travelled into English through Old French chapitre in the 1200s, and the modern spelling lost some of that French shape while keeping the 'p' from the Latin root. The same caput 'head' lurks inside relatives like 'captain', 'capital', and 'decapitate', all linked by the idea of a head or topmost thing. In church use a 'chapter' also became the governing body of canons who met to hear a chapter of their rule read aloud, which is why cathedrals still have a 'chapter house'.

How the word is built

• chapt- (from Latin capitulum: little head, heading)
• -er (noun ending shaped by Old French)