commander
Americannoun
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a person who commands.
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a person who exercises authority; chief officer; leader.
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the commissioned officer in command of a military unit.
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U.S. Navy. an officer ranking below a captain and above a lieutenant commander.
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a police officer in charge of a precinct or other unit.
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the chief officer of a commandery in the medieval orders of Knights Hospitalers, Knights Templars, and others.
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a member of one of the higher classes or ranks in certain modern fraternal orders, as in the Knights Templars.
noun
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an officer in command of a military formation or operation
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a naval commissioned rank junior to captain but senior to lieutenant commander
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the second in command of larger British warships
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someone who holds authority
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a high-ranking member of some knightly or fraternal orders
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an officer responsible for a district of the Metropolitan Police in London
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history the administrator of a house, priory, or landed estate of a medieval religious order
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of commander
1250–1300; Middle English < Old French comandere, equivalent to comand ( er ) to command + -ere < Latin -ātōr- -ator
Explanation
A commander is the person in charge, particularly in the military. If you're in the Navy, your commander gives directions that you're expected to follow. A commander does exactly what it sounds like: she issues instructions or commands and assumes they'll be obeyed. Although there are other kinds of commanders, you're most likely to find the word describing a military official. The President of the United States is considered the "Commander-in-Chief" of the US Armed Forces. The word comes from the Old French comander, "to order."
Vocabulary lists containing commander
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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.
He later traveled to the station aboard Soyuz MS-05, serving as a flight engineer for Expedition 52 and commander of Expedition 53.
From Science Daily • Jun. 11, 2026
"You've got the controls," said Reid Wiseman, the commander of that lunar mission.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
Its crew of four - commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen - became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
From BBC • Jun. 9, 2026
But Ike was never the sort of man-on-horseback-style commander that Churchill idolized in the manner of the First Duke of Marlborough, Napoleon Bonaparte or the Duke of Wellington.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026
A local commander had simply decided to take a shot.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
