chairs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of chair.

   The movers stacked the folding chairs against the back wall.

   Matching upholstered chairs surrounded the long dining table.

   Note

   One spelling serves every countable chair, not just the furniture. A committee can have several chairs. An orchestra seats its musicians in chairs. Railway track rests its bullhead rails on cast-iron chairs fixed to the sleepers. Chemists set chair conformers of cyclohexane against boat ones. Context decides which is meant, and the furniture reading is simply the default.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of chair.

   She chairs the budget committee with quiet authority.

   The senior partner chairs each quarterly review of the firm's accounts.

   Note

   This form shares its spelling with the plural noun, but here it is a verb that takes a direct object: she chairs the committee, never chairs over it. Presiding is the everyday meaning. A crowd that chairs its hero carries them shoulder-high in celebration, and in Wales an eisteddfod chairs its winning poet by awarding a chair.

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