What does cochaired mean?
"Cochaired" is the past tense and past participle of the verb "co-chair," meaning to have served as one of two or more joint heads of a meeting, committee, organization, campaign, or event. It appears most often in professional, political, and nonprofit contexts, where leadership is deliberately shared between equals — for example, "She cochaired the task force" or "The summit was cochaired by two former prime ministers." The word signals collaboration at the top rather than solitary command, which gives it a slightly cooperative, institutional connotation. It derives from "chair," in the sense of the presiding officer's seat, combined with the prefix "co-" meaning "together." Because the "co-" already implies joint action, careful writers avoid redundancy like "jointly cochaired." The related noun forms include "cochair" and gendered variants such as "cochairman" and "cochairwoman."
verbPast tense and past participle of co-chair: to have served as one of two or more joint chairs of a meeting, committee, organization, or event.
- To have served as a joint presiding officer of a meeting, committee, organization, or event alongside one or more others.
"The senator cochaired the bipartisan task force on infrastructure for nearly a decade."
"She cochaired the fundraising gala with her longtime business partner."
"The report was cochaired by two Nobel laureates."
Every time you say 'cochaired,' you're echoing a Latin word for a throne — 'chair' descends from 'cathedra,' the bishop's seat.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cochaired
The word combines the prefix "co-", from Latin "com-" meaning "together with," with "chair," which entered English in the Middle Ages from Old French "chaiere," ultimately from Latin "cathedra," meaning a seat or throne. "Cathedra" itself came from Greek "kathedra" (kata-, "down," plus hedra, "seat"), the same root behind "cathedral" and the phrase "ex cathedra." The verb "to chair," meaning to preside, developed in English by the seventeenth century from the practice of the presiding officer occupying a distinct seat, and "co-chair" arose as a modern compound reflecting shared leadership structures.
Related word forms
How cochaired is actually used
Neutral to formal register; most common in professional, political, and organizational contexts. The prefix 'co-' makes clear the role was shared, so phrases like 'jointly cochaired' are generally redundant.
Easily confused with cochaired
'Chaired' means serving as the single head of a meeting or body, while 'cochaired' specifically means sharing that role with at least one other person.