Where does “chairperson” come from?
Chairperson derives from Middle English persoun and Old French chaiere, which comes from Latin cathedra, ultimately from Ancient Greek καθέδρα, meaning a seat or throne.
chairperson (English): A chairman or chairwoman, someone who presides...
Definitions
- A chairman or chairwoman, someone who presides...
Ancestry of “chairperson”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | chair | An item of furniture used to sit on or in,... |
| 2 | English | Chuck | a Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoe |
| 3 | English | chock | Any object used as a wedge or filler, especially... |
| 4 | French | choquer | to hit, to collide; to shock |
| 5 | German | schockieren | to shock |
| 6 | Spanish | chocar | to crash; to bump into, to collide with; to... |
| 7 | Portuguese | chocar | to brood; to hatch; to linger |
| 8 | Russian | шоки́ровать | to horrify, to scandalize, to shock |
| 9 | Russian | -и́ровать | a productive verbal suffix, also used to create new verbs, especially from loanwords |
| 10 | German | -ieren | Verb suffix: it and its inflected forms are found... |
| 11 | French | -er | Forms infinitives of first-conjugation verbs |
| 12 | English | -er | A person or thing that does an action indicated... |
| 13 | Middle English | -er | agentive suffix; agent noun suffix |
| 14 | Old French | -er | Alternative form of -ier, verbal suffix;... |
| 15 | Latin | -āre | first conjugation |
| 16 | Proto-Italic | -āō | Forms primarily denominative verbs |
| 17 | Proto-Indo-European | -eh₂yéti | Creates iterative/ frequentative/ intensive... |
| 18 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |