Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US, Southern) an unprofessional, part-time lay preacher.

1955		PADS 23 35: The average white Southerner may use the term jackleg preacher freely as a gloss for such more local terms as chairbacker, stump-knocker, table-tapper, and yard-ax – designations for a part-time voluntary preacher, normally without formal seminary training and generally with a low degree of competence.
1970		in DARE.
1980		NADS letters n.p.: A chair back preacher was a man who was uneducated and he did not have his own church. He preached on the street corner and carried a chair with him which he used for his pulpit.

(UK society) old age.

1898

Sir E. Arnold on the death of Gladstone in Ware (1909) 69/1: Why should a cruel and humiliating malady torture the kindly, upright, conscientious spirit, and rack the strong, temperate bodily force spent in the service of his age, deserving, if any ever did, easy ‘chair days’ and the supreme easing of the natural euthanasia of old age?

(US) an office worker.

1919

Duffy G.P.F. Book 112: ‘Chair pounder’ has own ambition [HDAS].

1. a supernumerary, one who is there but does nothing, an observer; thus chair-warming n.

1883		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 10 Jan. 4/3: Such a measure would not meet with more opposition from the chair-warmers.
1891		L.A. Herald 17 Sept. 4/3: Any saloon keeper who employs barmaids allows chair-warmers to loiter in or around his place of business.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 102: You’re nothin’ but a chair-warmer.
1901		‘Hugh McHugh’ John Henry 65: Did you ever drop in of an evening and try to play pool under a cross-fire from the chair-warmers.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Dec. 1/1: A beer-chewing ex-chair warmer has added to his State-wide reputation.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 4/7: She catches ’im makin’ ’imself a good feller with three of Frank Clark’s Silk Stockin’ chair-warmers.
1912		Van Loan ‘Loosening Up of Hogan’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 135: Any chair warmer can tell you how to play a hand.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 78: Jack London proposed that we enter one of the numerous rum joints and there become ‘chair warmers’ until break of day — this meant that we were to roost astride of chairs.
1921		H.B. Woolston Prostitution in the US 112: Many men who visit the red-light quarter do so merely to see the sights [...] many of them merely dance or take a drink, and go along. This ‘hopping’ or ‘chair-warming,’ as it is sometimes called, is not always encouraged.
1922		G. Herriman ‘Stumble Inn’ [comic strip] That fella Joe Beamish is such a consistent ‘chair warmer’ [...] He’s gotta go.
1926		Maines & Grant Wise-crack Dict. 6/2: Chair warmer – a politician.
1931		L. Stoddard Master of Manhattan 174: With no sure base save Croker’s favor, Sheehan had seemed an ideal chair-warmer, to be unseated at the Boss‘s good will and pleasure.
1944		U. Sinclair Presidential Agent 359: This serious-minded, middle-aged chair-warmer with the round, rosy face and horn-rimmed spectacles.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 93/1: chair-warmer n. An idler.
2005		the jeffkirk.net weblog 21 Jan. [blog] The Magna program manager, a chair-warmer named Todd, turned the marketing duties over to Danny.

2. (US) one who holds a job on the understanding that they are only filling in prior to the appointment of a designated replacement.

1980

G. Liddy Will 185: Magruder was known to be a chairwarmer for John Mitchell, and there were a number of people over whom he did not have control.

responsible for buying the next round of drinks.

1938		L. Ortzen Down Donkey Row 267: ‘Wot yer having mates?’ he cried. ‘I’m in the chair!’.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxv 6/2: in the chair: Being time to shout, hit the kick, hit the deck.
1986		‘Pub Games’, Your Sinclair Dec. Issue 12 🌐 My mate Robbie B. says the pontoon is unbelievably accurate, with stakes kept to a fiver so you can keep enough for when you’re next in the chair.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 8: ‘You’re in the chair. Anyone’d think you had funnelwebs in your fob’ .
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 26/1: chair phr. in the chair your turn to buy the group’s drinks; eg ‘Ah, Morrie, you’re in the chair, boy. C’mon, I’m thirsty.’.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 162: ...reminding him that it was about time for him to hit his kick because he was in the chair and everyone was as dry as a wart on an Arab’s donger .
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(US black) .

1940

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Feb. 13: The jive larceny our Head Kicks are fumbling with is like the chair, stud hoss, it really ain’t there.

(US black) an invitation to sit down.

1928

W. Winchell Your Broadway & Mine 8 Nov. [synd. col.] Negro slang [...] Put it in the chair means to sit down.