seat
Definitions
Banking
- noun membership of a stock exchange
Cars & Driving
- noun the part of a vehicle on which you sit
- noun an area into which another part fits securely (such as the seal between a sparking plug or valve and the cylinder head).
Construction
- The cut made at the lower end of a rafter that enables it to fit securely over the top wall plate.
Electronics
- To fix firmly and correctly in place. For example, to seat a chip or circuit board in its socket.
- A surface, location, or part upon which something rests.
Politics
- noun membership of the House of Commons or being a Member of Parliament
- noun membership of a committee
Travel
- noun a chair in a cinema, plane, restaurant, train, etc.
- verb to have room for people to sit down
Origin & History of “seat”
Seat is of course a close relative of sit – they come from the same prehistoric Germanic base, *set-. But unlike sit, it is not a long-established native word. It is a borrowing, from Old Norse sáeti. It originally meant ‘act of sitting’, and was not used for ‘something to sit on’ until the 13th century.
