line officer

American  

noun

1. a military or naval officer serving with combatant units or warships, as distinguished from a staff officer, supply officer, etc.

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Etymology

Origin of line officer

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

line officer

The Navy ultimately allowed Greitens to become a general unrestricted line officer at a support center in St. Louis at his current rank, lieutenant commander.

From Washington Post ● May 31, 2019

I’ve been a line officer and a field officer, and those would not be easy decisions to make.

From Washington Times ● Sep. 21, 2015

Before the year was out, the promising Cabinet Minister was forced from government and self-exiled to the trenches in France as a common line officer.

From Time Magazine Archive

Polis countered, “She may have been a fine line officer and cop on the beat, but she’s a terrible agency head.”

From Washington Post

Keech is the only line officer who has been in all the regiment’s battles.

From Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 As Private, Sergeant and Lieutenant in the Sixty-First Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry by Fuller, Charles Augustus