colonel

See also: Colonel

English

Alternative forms

• coronel (obsolete)
• col., Col. (abbreviation)

Etymology

First attested 1548, from Middle French coronnel, from Old Italian colonnello (“the officer of a small company of soldiers (column) that marched at the head of a regiment”), from compagnia colonnella (“little column company”), from Latin columna (“pillar”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”), o-grade form from a Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (“to rise, be elevated, be prominent”). See hill, holm.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɜːnəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɝnəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: kernel
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl

The anomalous pronunciation is probably a holdover of the pronunciation of the earlier, obsolete form coronel.

Noun

colonel (plural colonels)

1. A commissioned officer in an armed military organization, typically the highest rank before flag officer ranks (generals). It is generally found in armies, air forces or naval infantry (marines).
   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter I, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     The colonel and his sponsor made a queer contrast: Greystone long and stringy, with a face that seemed as if a cold wind was eternally playing on it. […] But there was not a more lascivious reprobate and gourmand in all London than this same Greystone.

2. (historical) A military leader, distinct from the modern professional military rank.
   • 2009, Ranulph Fiennes, chapter 21, in Mad Dogs and Englishmen: An Expedition Round My Family, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 284:

     General Charles-Maximilian Fiennes was made colonel of the army.

3. An honorary civilian title bestowed by some southern US states, most commonly Kentucky; notably Colonel Sanders of KFC.
   • 2002, Kate Chopin and Anna Julia Cooper, “Critiquing Kentucky and the South”, in The Southern Literary Journal‎^[1], volume 35, number 1, page 127:

     "Colonel" was often used as an honorific, indicating no actual military service: between 1792 and 1916, according to Ron Bryant, a curator at the Kentucky Historical Society, 400 of the 650 colonels commissioned were honorary.

4. (Southern US, dated) An informal title used to address an elderly man.
5. (US) A form of address for an auctioneer, from the American Civil War practice of commanding officers organizing the public sale of seized goods.

Usage notes

• When used as a title, it is always capitalized.

Derived terms

• bird colonel (chicken colonel, full bird colonel)
• chickens for Colonel Sanders
• coloneless
• colonel general
• colonelship
• full colonel
• full eagle colonel
• half-colonel
• lieutenant colonel (lieutenant-colonel)
• senior colonel

 

Related terms

• colonelcy
• colonel-general
• royal colonel

Translations

commissioned office in the armed services

• Afrikaans: kolonel
• Albanian: kolonel (sq) m
• Arabic: عَقِيد (ar) m (ʕaqīd), زَعِيم m (zaʕīm), زَعِيم رُتْبَة m (zaʕīm rutba), كُولُونِيل m (kulunīl)
• Armenian: գնդապետ (hy) (gndapet)
• Aromanian: culunel m
• Azerbaijani: polkovnik (az), sərhəng (South Azerbaijani)
• Belarusian: палко́ўнік m (palkóŭnik)
• Bengali: কর্নেল (bn) (kornel)
• Bulgarian: полко́вник m (polkóvnik)
• Catalan: coronel (ca)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 上校 (soeng⁶ gaau³)

  Mandarin: 上校 (zh) (shàngxiào)

• Czech: plukovník (cs) m
• Danish: oberst (da) c
• Dutch: kolonel (nl) m
• Esperanto: kolonelo (eo)
• Estonian: kolonel, polkovnik
• Finnish: eversti (fi)
• French: colonel (fr) m
• Galician: coronel (gl) m
• Georgian: პოლკოვნიკი (ṗolḳovniḳi)
• German: Oberst (de) m
• Greek: συνταγματάρχης (el) m or f (syntagmatárchis) (army), σμήναρχος (el) m or f (smínarchos) (airforce)
• Gujarati: કર્નલ (karnal)
• Haitian Creole: kolonèl
• Hebrew: אַלּוּף מִשְׁנֶה m (alúf mishné)
• Hindi: कर्नल (hi) m (karnal)
• Hungarian: ezredes (hu)
• Indonesian: kolonel (id)
• Italian: colonnello (it) m
• Japanese: 大佐 (ja) (たいさ, taisa)
• Kannada: ಕರ್ನಲ್ (kn) (karnal)
• Kazakh: полковник (polkovnik)
• Khmer: វរសេនីយ៍ឯក (km) (vɔɔrĕəʼseenəy ʼaek)
• Korean: 대령(大領) (ko) (daeryeong), 상좌(上佐) (sangjwa)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: serheng (ku)

• Kyrgyz: полковник (polkovnik)
• Lao: ພັນເອກ (lo) (phan ʼēk)
• Latvian: pulkvedis m
• Lithuanian: pul̃kininkas m, pul̃kininkė f
• Macedonian: полковник m (polkovnik)
• Malay: kolonel
• Maltese: kurunell m
• Manx: curnal m
• Maori: kānara
• Marathi: कर्नल (karnal)
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: хурандаа (mn) (xurandaa)

  Mongolian: ᠬᠤᠷᠠᠩᠳᠠ (qurangda)

• Norman: coronel m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: oberst m

• Pashto: ډګروال m (ḍagarwāl), کرنل (karnal), کرنيل m (karnayl)
• Persian:

  Iranian Persian: سَرْهَنْگ (sarhang), کُلُنِل (kolonel)

• Polish: pułkownik (pl) m
• Portuguese: coronel (pt) m
• Romanian: colonel (ro) m, polcovnic (ro) m (dated)
• Russian: полко́вник (ru) m (polkóvnik)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: пу̀ко̄внӣк m, пуковница f

  Roman: pùkōvnīk (sh) m, pukovnica f

• Sicilian: culunnellu m, culunneḍḍu m
• Slovak: plukovník m
• Slovene: polkovnik m, polkóvnica
• Spanish: coronel (es) m
• Swedish: överste (sv) c
• Tagalog: koronel
• Tajik: полковник (polkovnik), сарҳанг (sarhang)
• Tatar: полковник (polkownik)
• Telugu: కర్నల్ (karnal)
• Thai: พันเอก (th) (pan-èek)
• Turkish: albay (tr)
• Turkmen: polkownik
• Ukrainian: полко́вник m (polkóvnyk)
• Urdu: کَرْنَل m (karnal)
• Uyghur: پولكوۋنىك (polkownik), شاڭشياۋ (shangshyaw)
• Uzbek: polkovnik (uz)
• Vietnamese: đại tá (vi) (大佐)
• Welsh: gyrnol
• Yiddish: פּאָלקאָווניק m (polkovnik), קאָלאָנעל m (kolonel)

Verb

colonel (third-person singular simple present colonels, present participle coloneling or colonelling, simple past and past participle coloneled or colonelled)

1. (intransitive) To act as or like a colonel.

French

Alternative forms

• colonnel, coronel, coronnel (obsolete)

Etymology

From Italian colonnello. Compare Middle French coronel, borrowed earlier from the same source. See English colonel for more.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.lɔ.nɛl/

• Audio; “un colonel”:

  (file)

Noun

colonel m (plural colonels, feminine colonelle)

1. a colonel, highest commissioned officer below generals
2. an ice cream dessert consisting of lemon sherbet and vodka

Related terms

• colonel-général
• lieutenant-colonel

Further reading

• “colonel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Romanian

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French colonel, from Middle French coronel, which see.

Noun

colonel m (plural colonei)

1. colonel (military officer above lieutenant-colonel and below all generals)

Declension

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	colonel	colonelul		colonei	coloneii
genitive-dative	colonel	colonelului		colonei	coloneilor
vocative	colonelule			coloneilor

Etymology 2

Borrowed from German Kolonel.

Noun

colonel n (uncountable)

1. glyph (a letter in a type of font)

Declension

singular only	indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	colonel	colonelul
genitive-dative	colonel	colonelului
vocative	colonelule