aide-de-camp
Americannoun
-
aides-de-camp
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of aide-de-camp
1660–70; < French: literally, camp helper; see aid, de, camp 1
Explanation
An aide-de-camp is a military officer who assists another officer with more seniority. An aide-de-camp is a military assistant. Many English words come from the military, and many others come from French. This word comes from both, as it's a French term for a military assistant. Just like assistants in other fields, the aide-de-camp will provide the senior officer with whatever is needed. This term also gets a fair amount of work as a general term for an assistant to a powerful person in any organization. Any supervisor or leader may have an aide-de-camp who helps them out.
Vocabulary lists containing aide-de-camp
All the Light We Cannot See
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French Terms Used in English
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Anna Karenina
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ella Stiller is their ingenuous aide-de-camp, Busy Philipps a flamboyant investor and Renée Elise Goldsberry as an opposing counsel who has history with Colter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
The unnamed narrator of “The Sympathizer” is a veteran of two armies: the North Vietnamese whom he served as spy and the South Vietnamese whose uniform he wore as aide-de-camp to a high-ranking general.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2025
They were called to testify at Police headquarters in Brasilia, along with Bolsonaro's former aide-de-camp Mauro Cid, his father, a retired army general, and another military officer that was a presidential aide.
From Reuters ● Aug. 31, 2023
He was aide-de-camp to the ousted leader's father, Omar Bongo, who ruled for almost 42 years until his death in 2009.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2023
Minutes later, the aide-de-camp flings open the shutters of an upstairs window and gazes a moment across the rooftops before unfurling a crimson flag over the brick and securing its eyelets to the sill.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Several of his most valuable aides-de-camp, including writing partner Billy Strayhorn and star saxophonist Johnny Hodges, had struck out on their own, and for the only time, the Maestro’s own inspiration seemed to flag.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
He also wisely chose as his aides-de-camp a pair of young go-getters, Mike Tamburro and Lou Schwechheimer, both eager to sell pregame tickets and pick up postgame trash to make the venture work.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2015
Immaculate aides-de-camp leaped quickly from the car to help, but the grief-stricken couple shook their heads.
From Time Magazine Archive
Last week Cubans doubted the story that his two grown daughters, pistols strapped to their sides, were his aides-de-camp in the field.
From Time Magazine Archive
The assemblage rose and bowed low as the Maharajah, attended by his sons and his aides-de-camp, passed in procession out of the hall.
From Life in an Indian Outpost by Gordon Casserly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
