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View synonyms for choir

choir

[ kwahyuhr ]

noun

  1. a company of singers, especially an organized group employed in church service.
  2. any group of musicians or musical instruments; a musical company, or band, or a division of one:

    string choir.

  3. Architecture.
    1. the part of a church occupied by the singers of the choir.
    2. the part of a cruciform church east of the crossing.
  4. (in medieval angelology) one of the orders of angels.


adjective

  1. professed to recite or chant the divine office:

    a choir monk.

verb (used with or without object)

  1. to sing or sound in chorus.

choir

/ kwaɪə /

noun

  1. an organized group of singers, esp for singing in church services
    1. 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 Compare chancel
    2. ( as modifier )

      choir stalls

  2. a number of instruments of the same family playing together

    a brass choir

  3. Also calledchoir organ one of the manuals on an organ controlling a set of soft sweet-toned pipes Compare great swell
  4. any of the nine orders of angels in medieval angelology


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Derived Forms

  • ˈchoirˌlike, adjective

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Other Words From

  • choir·like adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of choir1

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English quer, from Old French cuer, from Latin chorus “choir,” replacing Old English chor, from Latin; chorus

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Word History and Origins

Origin of choir1

C13 quer, from Old French cuer, from Latin chorus

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Idioms and Phrases

Idioms
  1. preach to the choir. preach to the choir.

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Example Sentences

Singing and talking, particularly when done loudly, are risky activities, as researchers learned from the Washington choir practice that became a Covid-19 superspreader event.

From Quartz

Experts have pointed to the spread of the virus in choirs, buses, fitness classes and other poorly ventilated spaces.

If you look at superspreading events, for example the Washington choir case, it is impossible they are being spread by droplets.

In one notorious case, a single person at a choir practice in Washington state infected 52 others, leading to two deaths.

From Vox

A database of Covid-19 superspreading events around the world lists numerous choir practices and a few concerts as sources of contagion.

From Vox

I know the verse because Mrs. Bertalan used to have us do it in ninth-grade choir.

Here it is being performed by the Westminster Cathedral Choir.

But I was a choir geek, and then got frustrated and took an acting class and realized that was the thing for me.

It was in the vestry where the choir was putting on its garments.

Then, as I sat here on this “throne,” this beautiful choir struck my ears and senses.

The steady use of the organ for an hour-and-a-half's choir rehearsal would exhaust the batteries.

When fifteen he became voluntary organist and choir-master to the Birkenhead School Chapel.

B'lieves in candles and vestures; got Tim into the choir one Sunday, and now you can't keep him out of it.

The body is an octagon of thirty-two feet diameter; and the choir, of the same shape, is twenty-one feet in diameter.

This is also a good point from which to study the clerestory as seen in choir and crossing.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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