lieutenant colonel

American

noun

U.S. Military.

a commissioned officer ranking next below a colonel and next above a major.

lieutenant colonel British

noun

an officer holding commissioned rank immediately junior to a colonel in certain armies, air forces, and marine corps

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of lieutenant colonel

First recorded in 1590–1600

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:

lieutenant colonel

Guest: Adam Kinzinger, former Republican Congressman for Illinois’s 11th and 16th districts, Jan 6 Committee member, former lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard.

From Slate ● Mar. 19, 2026

Known as the Crab, because he was born with an extra finger, the hulking Rodriguez Castro is a lieutenant colonel in the island’s interior ministry in charge of his grandfather’s security detail.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 15, 2026

Moran's president, Vyacheslav Kalashnikov, is a retired FSB lieutenant colonel, according to the Warsaw Institute, a Polish think tank.

From Barron's ● Feb. 23, 2026

As a teenager she worked as an au pair in India, and later lived in Hong Kong and Gibraltar with her husband Norman, a lieutenant colonel in the army.

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2025

One is Kim Yong, the former lieutenant colonel who had highly placed friends across North Korea.

From "Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West" by Blaine Harden

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023