Word.ws English Dictionary

cathedra

/kəˈθiːdɹə/

cathedra noun: the chair or throne of a bishop.

cathedra: the chair or throne of a bishop
Image: Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cathedra (plural cathedras or cathedrae)

  1. The chair or throne of a bishop.
  2. The rank of bishop.
  3. The official chair of some position or office, as of a professor.

Forms of cathedra

pluralcathedras
pluralcathedrae

Origin of cathedra

Borrowed from Latin cathedra (“seat”), from Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra, “chair of a teacher, throne”), from κατά (katá, “down”) + ἕδρα (hédra, “seat”). Doublet of chair and chaise.

Words formed from cathedra

Questions about cathedra

What does cathedra mean?
Cathedra means the chair or throne of a bishop.
What part of speech is cathedra?
Cathedra is a noun.
How do you pronounce cathedra?
Cathedra is pronounced /kəˈθiːdɹə/.
What is the plural of cathedra?
The plural of cathedra is cathedras.

Words near cathedra in the dictionary

  1. cathecting
  2. cathection
  3. cathections
  4. cathects
  5. cathed
  6. cathedra
  7. cathedrae
  8. cathedral
  9. cathedral cactus
  10. cathedral ceiling
  11. cathedral ceilings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cathedra (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cathedra.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cathedra. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.