Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) the electric chair.

1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 203: He abused her terrible, and the chair is too good for him.* (footnote: The electrical execution chair).
1896		S. Crane in N.Y. World 25 Oct. in Stallman (1966) 299: For the room is the place for the coronation of crime and the chair is the throne of death.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 170: He was a copper, and we fly cops have got to send some bloke to the chair for bastin’ him.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I ii: You’re going to the chair for this, Clayton. [Ibid.] viii: D’ye think we was goin’ ter stand fer havin’ a trip ter Sing Sing an’ the wire chair danglin’ over our heads!
1920		F. Packard White Moll 21: I’d rather go out this way than in that horrible thing they call the ‘chair.’.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 24: Me bruvver was topped; me cousin was sent to the chair in the States.
1931		(con. 1915) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 193: The man went to the chair carrying a picture of his victim.
1947		W. Motley Knock on Any Door 465: Let’s give him life. I know I’d rather get the chair than life!
1958		C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 58: If Ready has killed some trick he was steering to Reba’s the chair’s too good for him.
1962		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 72: I’ve prayed in despair to be sent to the chair / or bumped off at the end of a rope.
1977		B. Jackson Killing Time 176: Frank was the first man in the history of Arkansas to get the chair for the murder of another convict.
1985		N. Pileggi Wiseguy (2001) 29: Frank ‘Dasher’ Abbandando, who [...] went to the chair.
1998		L. Stringer Grand Central Winter (1999) 232: Pataki also knows, as does every other give-’em-the-chair posturer, that dealing out death to the bad guys is an idea that resonates with a frustrated, edgy populace.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 428: Sing Sing’s the juice house, home of the chair.

2. the chair in which a prisoner who is condemned to the gas chamber sits.

1954

C. Chessman Cell 2455 10: Big Red hears the plop, plop, plop of the deadly cyanide ‘eggs’ as they drop into the acid pan beneath the chair.

3. (US prison) a form of restraint for prisoners deemed recalcitrant, similar to a wheelchair but with straps to hold the prisoner immobile.

2021

S.A. Crosby Razorblade Tears 229: The ‘chair’ was a four-way restraint device for unruly prisoners.