take a chair—(also: have a chair) take a seat; be seated:
- When he came back to the house he refused to take a chair or a drink.
take the chair—
1. preside over a meeting, committee, etc.:
- At my third meeting I was asked to take the chair. I consented as offhandedly as if I were the Speaker of the House of Commons.
2. become head of a university department:
- Clark continued to teach at Melbourne until 1949, when he took the Chair of History at Canberra University College.
Note: The expression does not fully correlate in meaning with the phrase get the chair—
1. (coll.) be electrocuted:
- He could … get you off, maybe with life or twenty years, while this way you’re likely to get the chair, sure.
2. = take the chair 2:
- A few years later, I got the chair of Zoology at Lund University, and Eric got a permanent position soon after.