chambers

1. (archaic) A set of rooms in a building used as an office or a residential apartment.Examples: "Thanks, my lord, for your veniſon, for finer or fatter / Never rang'd in a foreſt, or ſmoak'd in a platter; / […] / I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view, / To be ſhevvn to my friends as a piece of virtu; […]"; "I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him."; "He used to drop into my chambers once in a while to smoke, and was first-rate company. When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me."archaicpluralplural-only

2. (by extension, law)broadlypluralplural-only

3. (by extension, law)Examples: "[B]e you mannerly to her, becauſe you are to pretend only to be her Squire, to arm her to her Lavvyers Chambers; but I vvill be impudent and baudy, for ſhe muſt love and marry me."; "[…] I dismissed my coach at the gate, and tripped it down to my counsel's chambers; for lawyer's fees take up too much of a small disputed jointure to admit any other expenses but mere necessaries."; "They rapped violently at the door of his [Samuel Johnson's] chambers in the Temple, till at laſt he appeared in his ſhirt, vvith his little black vvig on the top of his head, inſtead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that ſome ruffians vvere coming to attack him."Britishbroadlypluralplural-only

4. (British, historical) In full king's chambers: parts of the sea next to the coast of England and Wales delimited by imaginary lines connecting headlands, over which the Crown asserted exclusive jurisdiction; these have now been superseded by the concept of the territorial sea.Examples: "[W]e cannot be ſecure, vvhile ſuch huge Fleets of Men of VVar, both Spaniſh, French, Dutch, and Dunkirkeers, ſome of them laden vvith Ammunition, Men, Arms, and Armies, do daily ſail on our Seas, and confront the Kings Chambers; […]"; "The exclusive territorial jurisdiction of the British Crown over the enclosed parts of the sea along the coasts of the island of Great Britain, has immemorially extended to those bays called the King's Chambers; i.e. portions of the sea cut off by lines drawn from one promontory to another."; "Considerable areas of sea were thus enclosed within the Chambers, particularly on the west coast."Britishhistoricalpluralplural-only