chamber

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A room in a house, especially a bedroom.
2. n. A room where a person of authority, rank, or importance receives visitors.
3. n. A room in which a judge may consult privately with attorneys or hear cases not taken into court.
4. n. Chiefly British A suite of rooms, especially one used by lawyers.
5. n. A hall for the meetings of a legislative or other assembly.
6. n. A legislative or judicial body.
7. n. A board or council.
8. n. A place where municipal or state funds are received and held; a treasury.
9. n. An enclosed space or compartment: the chamber of a pump; a compression chamber.
10. n. An enclosed space in the body of an organism; a cavity: the four chambers of the heart.
11. n. A compartment in a firearm, as in the breech of a rifle or the cylinder of a revolver, that holds the cartridge in readiness for firing.
12. n. An enclosed space in the bore of a gun that holds the charge.
13. v. To put in or as if in a chamber; enclose or confine.
14. v. To furnish with a chamber.
15. v. To design or manufacture (a firearm) to hold a specific type of cartridge.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A room of a dwelling-house; an apartment; specifically, a sleeping-apartment; a bedroom.
2. n. plural
3. n. A room or rooms where professional men, as lawyers, conduct their business; especially, any place out of court (usually a room set apart for this purpose) where a judge may dispose of questions of procedure of a class not sufficiently important to be heard and argued in court, or too urgent to await a term of court: distinctively called judges' chambers.
4. n. Furnished rooms hired for residence in the house of another; lodgings: as, “a bachelor life in chambers,”
5. n. A place where an assembly meets: as, a legislative chamber, ecclesiastical chamber, privy chamber, etc.— 4. The assembly itself; sometimes, specifically, one of the branches of a legislative assembly: as, the New York Chamber of Commerce; a meeting of the legislative chamber.
6. n. A compartment or inclosed space; a hollow or cavity: as, the chambers of the eye (see below); the chamber of a furnace.
7. n. Specifically— In hydraulic engin,:
8. n. The space between the gates of a canal-lock.
9. n. The part of a pump in which the bucket of a plunger works.
10. n. Milit.:
11. n. That part of a barrel, at the breech of a firearm or piece of ordnance, which is enlarged to receive the charge or cartridge; also, a receptacle for a cartridge in the cylinder of a revolver or of a breech-loading gun.
12. n. An underground cavity or mine for holding powder and bombs, where they may be safe and dry. Distinctively called powder-chamber and bomb-chamber.
13. n. The indentation in an axle-box, designed to hold the lubricant.
14. n. That part of a mold containing the exterior part of a casting and covering the core in hollow castings.
15. n. In anatomy: A cavity representing the urogenital sinus of the embryo undifferentiated into a prostatic and bulbous urethra.
16. n. See chambers of the eye, below.
17. n. In conchology:
18. n. The interval between the septa of the camerated shell of a cephalopod, such as species of Nautilus or Ammonites, as well as the portion of the shell in which the animal rests.
19. n. A cavity separated from another or the main part of the interior of the shell by a septum.
20. n. In coal-mining, same as breast or room. See breast.
21. n. A short piece of ordnance without a carriage and standing on its breech, formerly used chiefly for rejoicings and theatrical purposes.
22. n. A bedroom utensil, used for containing urine; a chamber-pot.
23. n. A court in the Netherlands where cases relating to insurance are tried.
24. To reside in or occupy a chamber.
25. To fit snugly, as layers of buckshot in the barrel of a gun or in a cartridge. See extract under II., 3.
26. To shut up in or as in a chamber.
27. To furnish with a chamber, as the barrel of a breech-loading firearm. Guns are often chambered in order to enlarge the rear portion of the bore, so as to increase the powder-capacity behind the projectile.
28. To fit into tho barrel of a gun or into a cartridge, as buckshot.
29. n. The place where the moneys due the government (municipal or other) are received and kept; the treasury; the chamberlain's office. See chamberlain, 2.
30. n. of the British and American Divines who in 1870 and following year's produced the present Revised Version of the Bible; and.
31. n. of the Upper House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury: so named from its tapestried walls which show many scenes from Jerusalem. Here Henry IV. died.

Wiktionary

1. n. A room, especially one used primarily for sleeping; bedroom, sleeping room.
2. n. An enclosed space. For example, a test chamber is typically a closable case where devices under test are placed.
3. n. In a firearm, this is the portion of the weapon that holds the ammunition round immediately prior to (and during initiation of) its discharge.
4. n. One of the legislative bodies in a government where multiple such bodies exist, or a single such body in comparison to others.
5. v. To enclose in a room.
6. v. To place in a chamber, as a round of ammunition.
7. v. To create or modify a gun to be a specific caliber.
8. v. In martial arts, to prepare an offensive, defensive, or counteroffensive action by drawing a limb or weapon to a position where it may be charged with kinetic energy.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A retired room, esp. an upper room used for sleeping; a bedroom.
2. n. Apartments in a lodging house.
3. n. A hall, as where a king gives audience, or a deliberative body or assembly meets.
4. n. A legislative or judicial body; an assembly; a society or association.
5. n. A compartment or cell; an inclosed space or cavity.
6. n. (Law.) A room or rooms where a lawyer transacts business; a room or rooms where a judge transacts such official business as may be done out of court.
7. n. colloq. A chamber pot.
8. n. That part of the bore of a piece of ordnance which holds the charge, esp. when of different diameter from the rest of the bore; -- formerly, in guns, made smaller than the bore, but now larger, esp. in breech-loading guns.
9. n. A cavity in a mine, usually of a cubical form, to contain the powder.
10. n. A short piece of ordnance or cannon, which stood on its breech, without any carriage, formerly used chiefly for rejoicings and theatrical cannonades.
11. v. To reside in or occupy a chamber or chambers.
12. v. obsolete To be lascivious.
13. v. To shut up, as in a chamber.
14. v. To furnish with a chamber.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a room used primarily for sleeping
2. v. place in a chamber
3. n. an enclosed volume in the body
4. n. a natural or artificial enclosed space
5. n. a room where a judge transacts business
6. n. a deliberative or legislative or administrative or judicial assembly