Category:Chapter

Chap"ter, n. Etym: [OF. chapitre, F. chapitre, fr. L. capitulum, dim. of caput head, the chief person or thing, the principal division of a writing, chapter. See Chief, and cf, Chapiter.]

1. A division of a book or treatise; as, Genesis has fifty chapters.

2. (Eccl.) (a) An assembly of monks, or of the prebends and other clergymen connected with a cathedral, conventual, or collegiate church, or of a diocese, usually presided over by the dean. (b) A community of canons or canonesses. (c) A bishop's council. (d) A business meeting of any religious community.

3. An organized branch of some society or fraternity as of the Freemasons. Robertson.

4. A meeting of certain organized societies or orders.

5. A chapter house. [R.] Burrill.

6. A decretal epistle. Ayliffe.

7. A location or compartment. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom Shak. Chapter head, or Chapter heading, that which stands at the head of a chapter, as a title. -- Chapter house, a house or room where a chapter meets, esp. a cathedral chapter. -- The chapter of accidents, chance. Marryat.

chapter Chap"ter, v. t.

1. To divide into chapters, as a book. Fuller.

2. To correct; to bring to book, i. e., to demand chapter and verse. [Obs.] Dryden.

- ---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Chapter - The several books of the Old and New Testaments were from an early time divided into chapters. The Pentateuch was divided by the ancient Hebrews into 54 parshioth or sections, one of which was read in the synagogue every Sabbath day (Acts 13:15). These sections were afterwards divided into 669 sidrim or orders of unequal length. The Prophets were divided in somewhat the same manner into haphtaroth or passages. In the early Latin and Greek versions of the Bible, similar divisions of the several books were made. The New Testament books were also divided into portions of various lengths under different names, such as titles and heads or chapters. In modern times this ancient example was imitated, and many attempts of the kind were made before the existing division into chapters was fixed. The Latin Bible published by Cardinal Hugo of St. Cher in A.D. 1240 is generally regarded as the first Bible that was divided into our present chapters, although it appears that some of the chapters were fixed as early as A.D. 1059. This division into chapters came gradually to be adopted in the published editions of the Hebrew, with some few variations, and of the Greek Scriptures, and hence of other versions.