Chamber has the ch of early French borrowing, said as in church rather than as in machine. That distinction is a rough dating tool: words that came from French before about 1400 have the ch of chamber, chase, charge and chief, while later French borrowings keep the French sound, giving machine, chef and chandelier. Same letters, different centuries.
The word arrived about 1200 from Old French chambre, from Late Latin camera, "a room" — the same word that, borrowed again much later and directly from Latin, gives English camera. A chamber was a private room in a house, and the sense radiated outward from there: an enclosed space in the body from the late 1300s, the part of a gun bore holding the charge from the 1620s, a cavity in machinery from 1769. The legislative sense, from about 1400, is simply the room an assembly met in, standing in for the assembly itself.
chamber (n.) c. 1200, "a room in a house," usually a private one, from Old French chambre "room, chamber, apartment" (11c.), from Late Latin camera "a chamber, room" (see camera ). The Old French word and the Middle English one also were used alone and in combinations to form words for "latrine, privy" from the notion of "bedroom utensil for containing urine." In anatomy, "enclosed space in a body," from late 14c. Of machinery, "artificial cavity," from 1769. The gunnery sense of "part of the bore in which the charge is placed" is from 1620s. The meaning "legislative body" is from c. 1400, an extended sense from the chambers or rooms where an assembly meets. Chamber music (1765) traditionally was that meant to be performed in smaller spaces. DA CAMERA: of the chamber, i. e. belonging to the chamber, suitable for the chamber, designed for the chamber,—a term applied to parlor or chamber music. ["Godfrey Weber's General Music Teacher," Boston, 1842] also from c. 1200 chamber (v.) late 14c., "to restrain, shut up as in a chamber," also "to furnish with a chamber" (implied in chambered ), from chamber (n.). Related: Chambered ; chambering . also from late 14c.
chamber came in through Norman French, and its spelling follows that family's conventions.
How that family writes these sounds
| /tʃ/ | chchamber, charge, chase, chief |
What gives it away on the page
| ch said as /tʃ/ | Early French loans; later French loans say /ʃ/ instead (see below).chamber, chase, charge, chief |
Norman French in the spelling guide · guess another word's family