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choir
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
choir
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
choir practice
▪ There's choir practice on Tuesday evening.
male-voice choir
massed choir/bandBritish English (= several choirs or bands singing or playing together as one large group)
the church choir (=a group of people who lead the singing in a church)
▪ Steve’s a member of the local church choir.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
male
▪ He was also interested in phrenology and conducted a male voice choir.
▪ In his spare time he sang in a male voice choir.
■ NOUN
aisle
▪ He turned to the right and made for the north choir aisle.
▪ Now the choir and the south choir aisle were empty except for the Chapter clergy and the cathedral policeman.
cathedral
▪ The best of our cathedral choirs offer excellence of the highest order.
▪ At 9, he became a busy boy soprano, beginning a six-year scholarship to a cathedral choir.
▪ The introduction of girls into cathedral choirs and the continuing vitality of choir schools are also hopeful signs for the future.
church
▪ Boys and Girls A complicating factor in recruitment for church choirs may be the boy/girl issue.
▪ I taught a Sunday school class and sang in the church choir, whose members included soldiers stationed at nearby bases.
▪ He won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, sang in the church choir, and became a Scout.
▪ You may even have sung in a church choir, helping voices rise in spiritual exultation before trading in your satiny robe.
▪ He has sung in church choirs and is a tenor with Darlington Choral Society.
▪ The times she enjoyed the most were when she was singing and practicing with the church choir.
▪ Remuneration offered to children in parish church choirs is usually at the level of pocket money.
▪ He's heard, he says, that Speedo Man is a church choir director!
gospel
▪ The entertainment included Stevie Nicks, Al Green, a huge gospel choir and 1,000 dancers.
▪ In the sequel, Whoopi will play a nun who helps a gospel choir in a city slum.
▪ Anyone who understands gospel choirs and Jam &038; Lewis will know what to expect.
▪ From this tradition have emerged a number of notable black Gospel choirs, some of them performing to a very high standard.
practice
▪ He would walk her home from choir practice and Evensong.
▪ She says they look forward to choir practice.
▪ Friday the choir practice and on Saturday a prayer meeting for the services on Sunday.
▪ Make sure you're better for choir practice ... Miss Gregg.
▪ Back to choir practice we said.
▪ For he will not miss his evening class or his choir practice for a woman.
▪ But on the whole, Soho was quiet enough for choir practice these days.
school
▪ From the school came more music, the school choir rehearsing for Christmas.
▪ By 14 I was singing in the school choir.
▪ Artists will range from school choirs to household names.
▪ When I was eight years old I joined our school choir.
▪ In the second half the school choir performed Vivaldi's Gloria.
voice
▪ He was also interested in phrenology and conducted a male voice choir.
▪ In his spare time he sang in a male voice choir.
■ VERB
join
▪ I had to make decisions as to whether I should join the choir or arrange to play quartets.
▪ And our outlook on life from now until we join the feathered choir pivots on the answer.
▪ The Chamber Choir and the Renaissance Singers provide for those interested in joining smaller choirs.
▪ When I was eight years old I joined our school choir.
▪ He had joined the choir school of Notre-Dame and had sung in the chorus of the Opera-Comique.
preach
▪ Not only was he preaching to the choir, he was talking to tax-cutting evangelists.
▪ He is preaching to the choir of religious-right Protestants and conservative Catholics whose votes should already be locked up.
sing
▪ He sang in the choir, was a talented musician and a keen sportsman.
▪ I taught a Sunday school class and sang in the church choir, whose members included soldiers stationed at nearby bases.
▪ He won a scholarship to Halifax Secondary School, sang in the church choir, and became a Scout.
▪ By 14 I was singing in the school choir.
▪ He has sung in church choirs and is a tenor with Darlington Choral Society.
▪ You may even have sung in a church choir, helping voices rise in spiritual exultation before trading in your satiny robe.
▪ Now she sings instead with local choirs.
▪ I sing in the choir at the funeral service for the family.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
preach to the converted/choir
▪ As Chesterton was preaching to the converted there was no chance of this, so he avoided prosecution.
▪ But they will still usually be only the party faithful, so he will find himself preaching to the converted.
▪ He is preaching to the choir of religious-right Protestants and conservative Catholics whose votes should already be locked up.
▪ Not only was he preaching to the choir, he was talking to tax-cutting evangelists.
▪ To some extent this means preaching to the converted.
▪ You're preaching to the converted in us, but you've got to get at everyone else.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He's a member of a Welsh Male Voice Choir.
▪ I have always sung in choirs.
▪ Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin started singing in gospel choirs, not at music lessons.
▪ The school choir performed Vivaldi's Gloria.
▪ the St. Joseph's Cathedral Choir
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A choir of families, wrapped in woolly hats, overcoats and scarves, were singing carols by a crib.
▪ All this music is preserved in the Eton Choirbook, compiled in c.1500-4 for use by the choir of Eton College chapel.
▪ I had to make decisions as to whether I should join the choir or arrange to play quartets.
▪ I sing in the choir at the funeral service for the family.
▪ Mark Price not only looks like a choir boy, he is one.
▪ The hymn was followed by a passage from the New Testament, another hymn from the choir and some simple prayers.
▪ The nave and choir can have no triforium or clerestory so must be lit by exceptionally large aisle windows.
▪ The times she enjoyed the most were when she was singing and practicing with the church choir.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Choir

Choir \Choir\, n. [OE. quer, OF. cuer, F. ch[oe]ur, fr. L. chorus a choral dance, chorus, choir, fr. Gr. ?, orig. dancing place; prob. akin to ? inclosure, L. hortus garden, and E. yard. See Chorus.]

  1. A band or organized company of singers, especially in church service. [Formerly written also quire.]

  2. That part of a church appropriated to the singers.

  3. (Arch.) The chancel.

    Choir organ (Mus.), one of the three or five distinct organs included in the full organ, each separable from the rest, but all controlled by one performer; a portion of the full organ, complete in itself, and more practicable for ordinary service and in the accompanying of the vocal choir.

    Choir screen, Choir wall (Arch.), a screen or low wall separating the choir from the aisles.

    Choir service, the service of singing performed by the choir.
    --T. Warton.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
choir

c.1300, queor "part of the church where the choir sings," from Old French cuer, quer "choir of a church (architectural); chorus of singers" (13c., Modern French choeur), from Latin chorus "choir" (see chorus). Meaning "band of singers" is c.1400, quyre. Re-spelled mid-17c. on Latin model.

Wiktionary
choir

n. sing group; group of people who sing together; company of people who are trained to sing together.

WordNet
choir
  1. n. a chorus that sings as part of a religious ceremony

  2. a family of similar musical instrument playing together [syn: consort]

  3. the area occupied by singers; the part of the chancel between sanctuary and nave

choir

v. sing in a choir [syn: chorus]

Wikipedia
Choir

A choir (also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the Medieval era to the present, and/or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm and face gestures.

A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus. The former term is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the choir) and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is far from rigid. Choirs may sing without instrumental accompaniment, with the accompaniment of a piano or pipe organ, with a small ensemble (e.g., harpsichord, cello and double bass for a Baroque era piece), or with a full orchestra of 70-100 musicians.

The term "Choir" has the secondary definition of a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices and/or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th- to 21st-century oratorios and masses, chorus or choir is usually understood to imply more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.

Choir (disambiguation)

The word choir or quire can refer to:

Choir (architecture)

A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel between the nave and the sanctuary which houses the altar and Church tabernacle. In larger medieval churches it contained choir-stalls, seating aligned with the side of the church, so at right-angles to the seating for the congregation in the nave (of which there would have been little if any in the Middle Ages). Smaller medieval churches may not have a choir in the architectural sense at all, and they are often lacking in churches built by all denominations after the Protestant Reformation, though the Gothic Revival revived them as a distinct feature.

As an architectural term "choir" remains distinct from the actual location of any singing choir – these may located in various places, and often sing from a choir-loft, often over the door at the liturgical western end. In modern churches, the choir may be located centrally behind the altar, or the pulpit.

The back-choir or retro-choir is a space behind the high altar in the choir of a church, in which there may be a small altar standing back to back with the other.

Usage examples of "choir".

New Agey, like heaven without the harps and angelic choirs and pink clouds and alabaster pillars, or whatever.

They therefore represent a bay of the choir, of which the clerestory and triforium are removed, and the aisle roof is raised to the height of the roof of the choir itself.

This inter-penetration of mouldings is found also on the aisle side of the main piers of the choir, and is more characteristic of later German Gothic than of English.

The entrance to the crypt is from the north aisle of the choir as it was in ancient days.

Before this fire, the only crypt whose existence was known of, was a small chamber under the platform of the high altar, no wider than the central aisle of the choir, and only equal to a bay and a half of that aisle in length.

At the east end of the south aisle of the choir stood the altar of All Saints, founded by Bowet.

There is also an early Perpendicular Jesse in the third window from the west in the south aisle of the choir.

The slow, solemn enunciation of each word by a choir of hoary anchorets rolled in majestic cadence through the precipices of the mountains, and died away in the distant ravines in echoes of heavenly harmony.

They had crossed the three steps which led to the choir, then they turned by the circumference of the apse, which was the very oldest part of the building, and seemed most sepulchral.

In all probability there was, according to the usual plan of Norman churches, a tower at the junction of the nave and transepts, and beyond this an apsidal choir.

A sacristy of Early English date stands to the east of the apsidal chapel, and occupies the space between the apse and the south choir wall.

This is a thirteenth-century addition to the church, and is of irregular shape, as it is wedged in, as it were, between the apsidal chapel on the east side of the transept and the south wall of the choir aisle.

It was practically safe to assume that the choir ended in an apse, though whether the aisles were also apsidal, or continued round a great apse as an ambulatory, was a debatable point.

It had been a day full of obligations and endless ministerial duties, including a meeting with Larry Garber regarding his drawings of the sacristy, revised based on their telephone exchange, and a general review of the floor plan for the nave, the baptistry, and the choir.

All things fell into order, stars and men, the silent growing things, the seas, the mountains and the plains, fell into order like a vast choir to obey the command of the canticle: Benedicite, omnia opera!