chart

CHART/t͡ʃɑɹt/UKCHAHT/tʃɑːt/

14 meanings of chart

1
nouncountable
A visual presentation of data, often using lines, bars, or points to represent numbers or relationships.
She presented a chart comparing rainfall across the five regions.
The analyst's charts made the quarterly trends easy to grasp.
Similargraph, diagram
2
nouncountable
A diagram that lays out information or shows how something is structured.
The engineer sketched a chart showing how the components connect.
A clear chart of the organization's structure hung in the lobby.
Similardiagram
3
nouncountable
An organized presentation of data arranged in rows and columns, as in a table.
The reference chart listed conversion values for common units.
She built a chart pairing each product code with its price.
Similartable
4
nouncountable
A ranked list of competitors, especially of best-selling or most-played recorded music.
The single debuted near the bottom of the chart before climbing steadily.
Streaming numbers now shape the weekly music charts.
Similarrankings
Note
In the music sense the plural does most of the work. A band is "at the top of the charts", and songs climb or top the charts. The singular is kept for one particular list, such as this week's chart. From this noun comes the verb for making the list.
5
nouncountable
A map used by a navigator to plot a course, as at sea or in the air.
Like a road map, except it marks tides, depths, and hazards instead of highways.
She unrolled the chart and traced a course around the reef.
Pilots rely on aeronautical charts to avoid restricted airspace.
Similarmap
6
verbtransitive
To plan or work out a route or course of action.
The committee charted a new strategy for the coming year.
She wants to chart a careful route through the negotiations.
Similarplan, plot, map, devise
Note
The navigator's habit turned figurative. You chart a course, a route or a plan, or even, as Michael Bronski wrote in Gay Community News (1991), "their own notions of self-determination". The object is usually something still ahead, so chart a new course and chart one's own path sound natural. Mapping ground that already exists belongs to the map-drawing verb.
7
nouncountable
A map that shows how a particular phenomenon is distributed across a geographic area.
Researchers published a chart mapping the spread of the disease across the country.
The climate chart displayed average rainfall for each region.
Similarmap
Note
The map sense comes straight from Late Latin charta, which already meant "paper, card, map". Behind it lies a sheet of papyrus: Ancient Greek khártēs, "thin sheet", became Latin charta, "papyrus, writing". Middle French charte then carried both "card" and "map" into English. Card, carte and charter belong to the same family, which is why the old "deed" sense sits beside the map.
8
nouncountable
A file in which a patient's diagnosis, recent medical history, and directions for care are recorded.
The resident updated the chart with the latest blood pressure readings.
Each patient's chart hung at the foot of the bed.
Similarrecord, file
9
verbtransitive
To draw a chart or map of something.
The survey team charted the entire river valley.
Astronomers chart the positions of thousands of stars.
Similarmap, plot, survey
10
verbintransitive
To appear on a hit-recording chart, as a song or album does.
The song charted in more than a dozen countries.
New releases rarely chart without heavy streaming support.
Note
Records and artists chart; listeners do not. The verb is intransitive and takes no object: a song charts, has charted for 15 weeks, or first charted in 1994. To say how well it did, add a place or a phrase instead of an object, as in charted in a dozen countries or charted at number three.

11
verbtransitive
To record information in a systematic, organized way.
Researchers charted the animals' movements over several seasons.
Analysts chart consumer spending month by month.
Similartrack, record, log, monitor, document
12
verbtransitive
In health care, to write details such as symptoms, treatments, or readings into a patient's medical record.
She charted the new symptoms before leaving her shift.
Clinicians must chart any change in a patient's condition promptly.
Similarrecord, document, log, note
Note
Hospital shop talk turns the patient's record into a verb. Clinicians chart an observation, a dose or a symptom: "Did you chart the urine output yet?" The object is the information entered, never the patient. The usage is everyday in clinical speech, but outside a medical setting record or note is the clearer choice.
13
nouncountable
In differential geometry, a mapping that assigns coordinates to points in a region of a manifold; a coordinate chart.
Like a single page of an atlas: it shows one region of a round world on a flat sheet, and many pages together cover the whole globe.
Each chart maps an open region of the sphere onto a piece of the plane.
Two overlapping charts must agree smoothly where they meet.
Note
Mathematicians borrowed the cartographer's picture outright. A chart flattens one patch of a curved space onto ordinary coordinates, just as a map flattens a patch of the earth. Technically it is a homeomorphism from an open subset of a manifold onto an open subset of Euclidean space. A collection of charts covering the whole manifold is called an atlas, which carries the map-book metaphor through.
14
nouncountable
A written deed or charter; a formal document granting rights or property.
The lord produced a chart confirming his family's ancient claim to the land.
Monastic archives preserved charts dating back several centuries.
Similarcharter, deed
Note
Here the word stays closest to charter, its relative from the same Latin charta. A chart in this sense is the document itself, the written grant of land or rights, rather than anything drawn on it. Chart now suggests maps and graphs, so use charter wherever a reader might mistake the deed for a drawing.

Practice

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Origin

Borrowed from Middle French charte ("card, map"), from Late Latin and Latin charta ("paper, card, map"; "papyrus, writing"), which came from Ancient Greek khártēs ("papyrus, thin sheet"). It is related to charter, card, and carte.