colonel

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

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 compagna 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 *kel- (“to rise, be elevated, be prominent”). See hill, holm.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɜːnəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɝnəl/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: kernel

The anomalous pronunciation may be a holdover of the pronunciation of the earlier, obsolete form coronel.

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 731476803:

     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.

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

• bird colonel

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.

• colonnel, coronel, coronnel (obsolete)

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

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.lɔ.nɛl/

• Audio

  (file)

colonel m (plural colonels, feminine colonelle)

1. colonel
2. An ice cream dessert consisting of lemon sherbet and vodka.

• “colonel” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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

colonel m (plural colonei)

1. colonel (military officer above lieutenant-colonel and below general-major)

Borrowed from German Kolonel.

colonel n (uncountable)

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