choir

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An organized company of singers, especially one performing church music or singing in a church.
2. n. The part of a church used by such a company of singers.
3. n. The part of the chancel in a cruciform church that is occupied by this company of singers.
4. n. A group of instruments of the same kind: a string choir.
5. n. A division of some pipe organs, containing pipes suitable for accompanying a choir.
6. n. An organized group: a choir of dancers.
7. n. One of the orders of angels.
8. v. To sing in chorus.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any company of singers.
2. n. An organized company of singers. Especially, such a company employed in church service.
3. n. A choral society, especially one that performs sacred music. In eight-part music a chorus is divided into first and second choirs. In the Anglican Church, an official body consisting of the minor canons, the choral vicars, and the choristers connected with a cathedral, whose function is to perform the daily choral service. Such a choir is divided into two sections, called decani and cantoris, sitting on the right and left sides respectively; of these the decani side forms the leading or principal section. See cantoris, decani.
4. n. That part of a church which is, or is considered as, appropriated for the use of the singers. In churches of fully developed plan, that part between the nave and the apse which is reserved for canons, priests, monks, and choristers during divine service. In cruciform churches the choir usually begins at the transepts and occupies the head of the cross, including the altar (see cut under cathedral); but sometimes, especially in monastic churches, it extends beyond the transepts, thus encroaching upon the nave. In churches without transepts the choir is similarly placed. In medieval examples, especially after 1250, it was usually surrounded by an ornamental barrier or grating (see choir-screen), and separated from the nave by a rood-screen. See chancel.
5. n. A company; a band, originally of persons dancing to music: loosely applied to an assembly for any ceremonial purpose.
6. n. Formerly and still occasionally quire.
7. To sing in company.
8. n. All that part of a cruciform church which is beyond, eastward of or farther from the main entrance than the transept; the eastern arm of the cross: so named because the choir proper (see def. 3) is usually in that part of the church and occupies nearly all of it. Thus, without reference to the interior, one may say of a great church that the choir is fourteenth-century work, while the nave and transepts remain twelfth-century, as at Tournai in Belgium.
9. n. A group of instruments of the same class or of related organ-stops, as a trombone choir, a diapason choir, etc.

Wiktionary

1. n. Singing group; group of people who sing together; company of people who are trained to sing together
2. n. The part of a church where the choir assembles for song
3. n. one of the nine ranks or orders of angels

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A band or organized company of singers, especially in church service.
2. n. That part of a church appropriated to the singers.
3. n. (Arch.) The chancel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a family of similar musical instrument playing together
2. n. a chorus that sings as part of a religious ceremony
3. n. the area occupied by singers; the part of the chancel between sanctuary and nave
4. v. sing in a choir