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chairman

noun · verb

Simple meaning

The head of a corporate or governmental board of directors, a committee, or other formal entity.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

chehrmuhn

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtʃɛɹmən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The head of a corporate or governmental board of directors, a committee, or other formal entity.

  2. A person presiding over a meeting.

verb

  1. To serve as chairman.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The head of a corporate or governmental board of directors, a committee, or other formal entity.

Used this way, chairman is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in business or professional contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Business/professional

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Head

committee chairmanboard chairman

Other combinations

vice chairmandeputy chairmanchairman maoformer chairmanelected chairmanfirst chairman

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • chairman of the boardnounCompound term

    The chairman of the board of directors of a corporation.

  • vice chairmannounCompound term

    One ranking below or serving in the place of a chairman.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: head of a corporate

chairchairpersonpresident

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.