colonel

See also: Colonel

English

Alternative forms

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

Etymology

First attested in the 1540s, 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.

The French spelling was reformed late 16th century. The English spelling was modified in 1580s in learned writing to conform to the Italian form (via translations of Italian military manuals), and differing pronunciations (either with "r" or "l") coexisted until around 1650, when it is pronounced with "r" only. Spanish and Portuguese coronel, also from Italian, shows similar evolution by dissimilation and perhaps by influence of corona.

Pronunciation

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

• Audio (US):

  (file)

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

The anomalous pronunciation is a holdover of the pronunciation of the earlier, now obsolete form coronel, which was used simultaneously for a while.

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
• colonel commandant (colonel-commandant)
• coloneless
• colonel general
• colonel-in-chief
• colonelship
• full colonel
• full eagle colonel
• half-colonel
• honorary colonel
• Kentucky 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
• colonel-major
• 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

Declension of colonel

	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

Declension of colonel

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