colonel

American  

[kur-nl] / ˈkɜr nl /

noun

1. an officer in the U.S. Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps ranking between lieutenant colonel and brigadier general: corresponding to a captain in the U.S. Navy.

2. a commissioned officer of similar rank in the armed forces of some other nations.

3. an honorary title bestowed by some Southern states, as to those who have brought honor to the state, prominent businesspersons, visiting celebrities, or the like.

   When the vice president visited the state he was made a Kentucky colonel.

4. Older Use. (in the South) a title of respect prefixed to the name of distinguished elderly men.

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colonel British  

/ ˈkɜːnəl /

noun

1. an officer of land or air forces junior to a brigadier but senior to a lieutenant colonel

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Pronunciation

Colonel , with its medial l pronounced as , illustrates one source for the apparent vagaries of English spelling: divergence between a word's orthographic development and its established pronunciation. In this case, English borrowed from French two variant forms of the same word, one pronounced with medial and final , and a second reflecting dissimilation of the first to . After a period of competition, the dissimilated form triumphed in pronunciation, while the spelling colonel became the orthographic standard.

Other Word Forms

• colonelcy
  noun

Etymology

Origin of colonel

1540–50; < Middle French < Italian colon(n)ello, equivalent to colonn(a) column + -ello < Latin -ellus diminutive suffix; so named because such an officer originally headed the first column or company of a regiment

Explanation

A colonel is a commissioned military officer in the U.S. Army, Air Force, or Marines who ranks above a lieutenant colonel and below a brigadier general. We still say colonel like the French word it comes from, coronel, which means "chief." To your ear, it probably sounds like "kernel." A colonel leads a regiment, but there are many other levels of officers, all generals, above him. Just below the colonel is the lieutenant colonel, which means colonel’s aide, and below that is the rank of major.

Example Sentences

Travis Haines, a lieutenant colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, told the BBC he believes the boost in recruitment is in large part tied to the military reducing bureaucratic hurdles.

From BBC • May 9, 2026

The result, according to an Israeli colonel interviewed in a February 2023 Israeli military article about AI in combat, is a system that could find targets quickly.

From Los Angeles Times • May 4, 2026

Dwight Macdonald managed the difficult feat of being a democratic socialist and at the same time a tiresome snob and cultural reactionary, often coming off like a retired colonel at his London club.

From Salon • Apr. 19, 2026

Frederick D’Sa, an 83-year-old retired Indian army colonel, said the Mumbai policewoman who he thought arrested him last October over WhatsApp for allegedly funding terrorists was entirely believable.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 30, 2026

“The colonel went down over near Combahee, Doc. They can’t find his plane in the fog and the Marine Corps has asked civilians to help in the search. All the boys are in the river.”

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy