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View synonyms for chairperson
chairperson
[ chair-pur-suhn ]
noun
- a person who presides over a meeting, committee, board, etc.
- the administrative head of a department in a high school, college, or university.
chairperson
/ ˈtʃɛəˌpɜːsən /
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Usage
See chairman
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Gender Note
Chairperson has, since the 1960s, come to be used widely as an alternative to either chairman or chairwoman. This change was motivated largely by a desire to avoid chairman, which was felt to be inappropriate and even sexually discriminatory when applied to a woman. Chairperson is standard in all varieties of speech and writing. Despite such widespread acceptance, some organizations and publications do not use chairperson at all, usually on the grounds that it is awkward and that chairman is a well-established generic term. Many style guides advocate use of the term chair to designate the presiding officer, thus avoiding charges of both sexism and awkwardness: Jim will be chair of the entertainment committee this year, and Jane will be chair next year. -man, -person, -woman.
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Other Words From
- chairperson·ship noun
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Word History and Origins
Origin of chairperson1
First recorded in 1970–75; chair(man) + -person
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Example Sentences
The chairperson at Doe's disciplinary was faculty member Dennis Conway.
From The Daily Beast
Art is resistance, said Freedom Theater chairperson Bilal Saadi.
From The Daily Beast
My candidate for Fed chairperson would be Janet Yellen, who runs the San Francisco Fed.
From The Daily Beast
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