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
- commandership noun
- subcommander noun
- subcommandership noun
- undercommander noun
Etymology
Origin of commander
1250–1300; Middle English < Old French comandere, equivalent to comand ( er ) to command + -ere < Latin -ātōr- -ator
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.
The commander - who is white haired and softly spoken - belongs to a small dissident group called Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan.
From BBC
John Miller, a former commander of naval forces in the Middle East.
When Time magazine last week asked the commander in chief whether Americans should be worried about potential terrorist strikes at home, he replied, “I guess.”
From Los Angeles Times
One of his first initiatives is an audit of battlefield losses -- ranking commanders based on casualty levels, in an attempt to address high levels of desertion among rank-and-file troops and the unpopularity of mobilisation.
From Barron's
Moments later, Issa got a call from the commander of the Republican Guard, the force responsible for protecting the president.
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.
