chambers — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A set of rooms in a building used as an office or a residential apartment.

   Usage

   • Archaic
   • plural
   • Plural only

   Examples

   More examples (5)

   Thanks, my lord, for your veniſon, for finer or fatter / Never rang'd in a foreſt, or ſmoak'd in a platter; / […] / I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, / To be ſhevvn to my friends as a piece of virtu; […]

   I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him.

   He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.

   [A]s a rule the chambers were occupied only by Stack, who had been Wilfrid's batman in the war, and had for him one of those sphinx-like habits which wear better than expressed devotions.

   So Tyrion [Lannister] hatches one last brilliant scheme in a season full of them, and this one goes exactly as well as all the others, even if it doesn’t look like it at first. He alone takes a meeting with Cersei [Lannister], in her chambers, with the Mountain [Gregor Clegane] ready and waiting to dispatch him.

2. Chiefly in in chambers: a judge's private office which is used for hearings that do not need to be held in open court.

   Usage

   • broadly
   • plural
   • Plural only

3. Originally, a set of rooms at an Inn of Court used by one or more barristers as an office and residence; now, the office of one or more barristers in any building.

   Usage

   • UK usage
   • broadly
   • plural
   • Plural only

   Examples

   More examples (5)

   [B]e you mannerly to her, becauſe you are to pretend only to be her Squire, to arm her to her Lavvyers Chambers; but I vvill be impudent and baudy, for ſhe muſt love and marry me.

   […] I dismissed my coach at the gate, and tripped it down to my counsel's chambers; for lawyer's fees take up too much of a small disputed jointure to admit any other expenses but mere necessaries.

   They rapped violently at the door of his [Samuel Johnson's] chambers in the Temple, till at laſt he appeared in his ſhirt, vvith his little black vvig on the top of his head, inſtead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that ſome ruffians vvere coming to attack him.

   Nevertheless, these venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag and the Winged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons who inhabit them, and a share of the rough comforts and freedom, which men always remember with pleasure. I don't know whether the student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, […] but the man of letters can't but love the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, […] old Samuel Johnson rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman [James Boswell] at his heels on their way to Dr. [Oliver] Goldsmith's chambers in Brick Court; […]

   To be well in chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill in chambers— […] —this, indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors, and shall only heartily pity those bachelors in the Temple, who brave it every day.

4. In full king's chambers: parts of the sea next to the coast of England and Wales delimited by imaginary lines connecting headlands, over which the Crown asserted exclusive jurisdiction; these have now been superseded by the concept of the territorial sea.

   Usage

   • UK usage
   • Historical
   • plural
   • Plural only

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   [W]e cannot be ſecure, vvhile ſuch huge Fleets of Men of VVar, both Spaniſh, French, Dutch, and Dunkirkeers, ſome of them laden vvith Ammunition, Men, Arms, and Armies, do daily ſail on our Seas, and confront the Kings Chambers; […]

   The exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the British Crown over the enclosed parts of the sea along the coasts of the island of Great Britain, has immemorially extended to those bays called the King's Chambers; i.e. portions of the sea cut off by lines drawn from one promontory to another.

   Considerable areas of sea were thus enclosed within the Chambers, particularly on the west coast.

5. A midmorning break at Eton College.

   Usage

   • plural
   • Plural only

   Examples

   Drury presented himself at Chambers before 11 o'clock school one day with a conspicuous black eye.