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choir

[kwahy^uhr]

Example Sentences Origin

noun

a company of singers, especially an organized group employed in church service.

any group of musicians or musical instruments; a musical company, or band, or a division of one: string choir.

Architecture.

the part of a church occupied by the singers of the choir.

the part of a cruciform church east of the crossing.

(in medieval angelology) one of the orders of angels.

adjective

professed to recite or chant the divine office: a choir monk.

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Choir is always a great word to know.

So is archway. Does it mean:

an entrance or passage covered or enclosed by an arch

an area of wall enframed by an arch or vault

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verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

to sing or sound in chorus.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English quer < Old French cuer < Latin chorus chorus; replacing Old English chor choir < Latin

Related forms

choir·like, adjective

Can be confused: choir, quire¹.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To choir

Example Sentences

Rose-Marie's dream was to build a choir from scratch.

There may be a benediction, and a choir may dutifully sing.

Each participant was, in effect, preaching to his own choir.

EXPAND

Rose-Marie's dream was to build a choir from scratch.

There may be a benediction, and a choir may dutifully sing.

Each participant was, in effect, preaching to his own choir.

In some ways, photography doesn't do a whole lot other than sing to the choir.

As a college student, my eyes would often well up with tears during my twice-a-week choir rehearsals.

Only the northwest staircase and the choir section remained standing.

To use a mocking metaphor, they're only preaching to the choir.

The sessions, which the cops call choir practice, are epic benders that have the effect of decompressing the men's psyches.

They often also have social events where they discuss church choir things.

The walls of their little church hall are decorated with pictures of generation upon generation of their local choir.

Champage is a little more complex and ambitious, with strings and a choir.

What's more difficult is modulating one's writing and other communications to really reach beyond that choir.

You've convinced me, but then that's preaching to the choir.

The solution will come only if frigid women are appointed to lead the church and the boys choir.

They have a boy's choir that sings from the balcony, and it is so pretty.

Professional parents shuttle their kids from choir practice to baseball camp and check that they are doing their homework.

Nobody ever got fired for hiring preachers for the choir.

You're criticizing the preacher for not disclosing his religious affiliation to the choir.

It is particularly strong in music, with chamber and symphony orchestras, a jazz band and an excellent choir.

Of course, not every scientist is ready to don choir robes.

Scenes from one of modern music's more unlikely traveling acts: a women's choir fused with a heavy metal band.

Preaching to the choir is not a notably brave thing to.

He hopes that a permanent choir he is trying to form will prove satisfactorily innocent and encourage girls to join.

While negotiating the use of its steeple, a savvy church can also bargain for a set of pagers for choir members.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

choir (kwaɪə)

—n
1.	an organized group of singers, esp for singing in church services
2.	a. Compare chancel the part of a cathedral, abbey, or church in front of the altar, lined on both sides with benches, and used by the choir and clergy
	b. (as modifier): choir stalls
3.	a number of instruments of the same family playing together: a brass choir
4.	great Compare swell Also called: choir organ one of the manuals on an organ controlling a set of soft sweet-toned pipes
5.	any of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology

[C13 quer, from Old French cuer, from Latin chorus]

'choirlike

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

choir

c.1300, from O.Fr. quer "choir of a church," from L. chorus "choir" (see chorus), to Eng. as quyre, re-spelled 1643 on L. model.

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"Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth ... have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being (esse) is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit."

-George Berkeley

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