choir

• quire (archaic)

From Middle English quer, quere, from Old French quer, from Latin chorus, from Ancient Greek χορός (khorós, “company of dancers or singers”). Modern spelling influenced by chorus and Modern French chœur. Doublet of chorus.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kwaɪə(ɹ)/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪə(r)
• (US) IPA^(key): /kwaɪɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪɚ
• Homophone: quire

choir (plural choirs)

1. Singing group; group of people who sing together; company of people who are trained to sing together.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     Then everybody once more knelt, and soon the blessing was pronounced. The choir and the clergy trooped out slowly, […], down the nave to the western door. […] At a seemingly immense distance the surpliced group stopped to say the last prayer.

   The church choir practices Thursday nights.

2. (architecture) The part of a church where the choir assembles for song.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.

3. (Christian angelology) One of the nine ranks or orders of angels.

   Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones are three of the choirs of angels.

4. Set of strings (one per note) for a harpsichord.

• chorister
• Nikon choir

• choral
• chorus
• quire

choir (third-person singular simple present choirs, present participle choiring, simple past and past participle choired)

1. Alternative form of quire (“to sing in concert”)
   • 1859, The Presbyterian Magazine (volume 9, page 423)

     The great aim of this book is to secure congregational singing, which the churches must come to, at last, after a long interval of choiring.

• chiro, chiro-, ichor

From Middle French cheoir, from Old French cheoir, from Vulgar Latin *cadēre, from Latin cadere, present active infinitive of cadō, from Proto-Italic *kadō, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₂d- (“to fall”). Compare Franco-Provençal chêre, Occitan caire, Italian cadere.

• IPA^(key): /ʃwaʁ/
• Rhymes: -waʁ

choir (defective) (past participle chu)

1. (literary) to fall

This is a defective verb, only conjugated in certain tenses.

• tomber

• chute
• déchoir
• échoir
• méchoir
• rechoir

• “choir” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• IPA^(key): [xɛɾʲ]

choir m

1. Lenited form of coir.