seat
/ˈseɪæt/ noun, verb, proper noun
- noun Something to be sat upon.
- noun A place in which to sit. “There are two hundred seats in this classroom.”
- noun The horizontal portion of a chair or other furniture designed for sitting. “He sat on the arm of the chair rather than the seat, which always annoyed his mother.”
- noun A piece of furniture made for sitting, such as a chair, stool, or bench; any improvised place for sitting. “She pulled the seat from under the table to allow him to sit down.”
- noun (aviation, military, slang) An ejection seat. “Hey, fighter boy, our radar's putting out enough energy to launch your seat from this distance!”
- noun The part of an object or individual (usually the buttocks) directly involved in sitting. “Instead of saying "sit down", she said "place your seat on this chair".”
- noun The part of a piece of clothing (usually pants or trousers) covering the buttocks. “The seat of these trousers is almost worn through.”
- noun (engineering) A part or surface on which another part or surface rests. “The seat of the valve had become corroded.”
- verb (transitive) To put an object into a place where it will rest; to fix; to set firm. “Be sure to seat the gasket properly before attaching the cover.”
- verb (transitive) To provide with a place to sit. “This classroom seats two hundred students.”
- verb (transitive) To request or direct one or more persons to sit. “Please seat the audience after the anthem and then introduce the first speaker.”
- verb (transitive, legislature) To recognize the standing of a person or persons by providing them with one or more seats which would allow them to participate fully in a meeting or session. “Only half the delegates from the state were seated at the convention because the state held its primary too early.”
- verb (transitive) To assign the seats of. “to seat a church”
- verb (transitive) To cause to occupy a post, site, or situation; to station; to establish; to fix; to settle. “This valve isn't seating properly.”
- verb (obsolete, intransitive) To rest; to lie down.
- verb To settle; to plant with inhabitants. “to seat a country”
- proper noun Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo, a Spanish automobile manufacturer.
- noun An automobile from Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
place buttocks nates arse butt backside bum buns can fundament hindquarters hind end keister posterior prat rear rear end rump stern tail tail end tooshie tush bottom behind derriere fanny ass sit sit down
Etymology
From Middle English sete, from Old English sǣte, possibly from (or simply cognate with) Old Norse sæti (“seat”), both from Proto-Germanic *sētiją (“seat”), from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”); compare Old English set (“seat”).
Noun sense 2 (“location or site”) is probably derived from Old English sǣte (“house”), which is related to Old High German sāza (“sedan, seat, domicile”).
* Middle Dutch gesaete
* Old High German gisazi (modern German Gesäß)
Perhaps a variant of Sait.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The place or thing upon which one sits; hence; anything made to be sat in or upon, as a chair, bench, stool, saddle, or the like.
- noun The place occupied by anything, or where any person or thing is situated, resides, or abides; a site; an abode, a station; a post; a situation.
- verb To place on a seat; to cause to sit down; as, to seat one's self.
- verb To cause to occupy a post, site, situation, or the like; to station; to establish; to fix; to settle.
Etymology [OE. sete, Icel. sæti; akin to Sw. säte, Dan. sæde, MHG. saze, AS. set, setl, and E. sit. sq. root154. See Sit, and cf. Settle, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “seat”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details