chapter

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a series of related events forming an episode

   a chapter of disasters

2. 2
   noun

   a local branch of some fraternity or association

   We joined the Atlanta chapter.

3. 3
   noun

   any distinct period in history or in a person's life

   the industrial revolution opened a new chapter in British history

4. 4
   noun

   One of the main sections into which a published work is divided, especially a book.

   Detective novel writers try to keep up the suspense until the last chapter.

5. 5
   noun

   A sequence (of events), especially when presumed related and likely to continue.

   1866, Wilkie Collins, Armadale, Book the Last, Chapter I, "You know that Mr. Armadale is alive," pursued the doctor, "and you know that he is coming back to England. Why do you continue to wear your widow's dress?" ¶ She answered him without an instant's hesitation, steadily going on with her work. ¶ "Because I am of a sanguine disposition, like you. I mean to trust to the chapter of accidents to the very last. Mr. Armadale may die yet, on his way home."

6. 6
   noun

   A location or compartment.

   In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?

7. 7
   verb

   To use administrative procedure to remove someone.

   If you're a single parent [soldier] and you can't find someone to take care of your children, they will chapter you out [administrative elimination from the service]. And yet if you use someone not certified, they get mad.

8. 8
   noun

   a subdivision of a written work

Etymology

From Middle English chapitre, from Old French chapitre, from Latin capitulum (“a chapter of a book, in Medieval Latin also a synod or council”), diminutive of caput (“a head”); see capital, capitulum, and chapiter, which are doublets of chapter.