A seat designed for one person.
A familiar word, four lives.
Simplified path. The puzzle showed the main steps; the full route is being checked.
Greek
kathedra
‘A seat’
into Latin
Latin
cathedra
‘A chair’
into Middle English
Middle English
chaiere
‘A seat’
became English
English
chair
‘The familiar seat’
Chair traces back through French and Latin cathedra to Greek kathedra. Middle English chaiere sits close to the modern word, while the older forms look unexpectedly formal. The familiar seat name is the result of a long series of changes.
These are selected stages, not every spelling or intermediary. The story identifies omitted links; older forms did not all disappear at once.
A short everyday word can be the worn-down descendant of a much longer one.