a chariot: a horse-drawn, wheeled vehicle, most often the two-wheeled war car of the ancient world
A chariot in the Bible is a light, horse-drawn vehicle on wheels. Its defining use was war: a fast platform from which to fight, the tank of its day, and the measure of an army's strength. The word names the vehicle itself, distinct from the horses that pull it and the rider who stands in it.
The same vehicle served outside the battlefield too. Kings and high officials rode in chariots as a sign of rank, so the word also marks a person of importance traveling in state, whether a Pharaoh parading his new vizier or a king fleeing for his life. Because chariots were costly and imported, they also stand in the text as prized property: bought, stockpiled, traded, and counted up as treasure.
In a handful of prophetic and visionary passages the chariot is lifted to a higher key. God himself is pictured coming in chariots, and the vivid throne-vehicle formed by the outstretched wings of the carved angels over the ark is called a chariot. Here the everyday war machine becomes an image of overwhelming, royal power on the move.
Throughout, the core picture stays the same wheeled vehicle. What shifts is who rides in it and why, so the senses below sort the occurrences by that use rather than by any change in what the word names.