officer
Americannoun
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officers
plural
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a person who holds a position of rank or authority in the army, navy, air force, or any similar organization, especially one who holds a commission.
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a member of a police department or a constable.
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a person licensed to take full or partial responsibility for the operation of a merchant ship or other large civilian ship; a master or mate.
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a person appointed or elected to some position of responsibility or authority in the government, a corporation, a society, etc.
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(in some honorary orders) a member of any rank except the lowest.
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Obsolete. an agent.
verb (used with object)
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officers,
present (3rd person singular)
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officered,
past participle, past
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officering
present participle
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to furnish with officers.
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to command or direct as an officer does.
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to direct, conduct, or manage.
noun
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a person in the armed services who holds a position of responsibility, authority, and duty, esp one who holds a commission
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See police officer
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(on a non-naval ship) any person including the captain and mate, who holds a position of authority and responsibility
radio officer
engineer officer
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a person appointed or elected to a position of responsibility or authority in a government, society, etc
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a government official
a customs officer
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(in the Order of the British Empire) a member of the grade below commander
verb
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to furnish with officers
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to act as an officer over (some section, group, organization, etc)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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officerhoodnoun
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officershipnoun
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subofficernoun
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underofficernoun
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officerialadjective
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officerlessadjective
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unofficeredadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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officersimple
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officerssimple
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have officeredperfect
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has officeredperfect
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am officeringprogressive
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are officeringprogressive
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is officeringprogressive
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have been officeringperfect progressive
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has been officeringperfect progressive
Past
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officeredsimple
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had officeredperfect
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was officeringprogressive
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were officeringprogressive
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had been officeringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of officer
1275–1325; Middle English < Anglo-French; Middle French officier < Medieval Latin officiārius, equivalent to Latin offici ( um ) office + -ārius -ary; see -er 2, -ier 2
Explanation
An officer is someone who works for a police force or has a high position in the military. Police officers in some towns and cities patrol on bikes, or occasionally even on horseback. You might see police officers patrolling in your neighborhood, or guarding a bank, or inspecting bags in a train station. Military officers hold a high rank, and they issue commands to lower-ranking service members, and an officer is also the commander of a military ship. Another kind of officer is simply "a person who holds an office," which can mean an elected position or a senior job at a company, like a "chief executive officer," or CEO.
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:
Jackson succeeds Claude Russ, who stepped in as FedEx’s interim chief financial officer in June after John Dietrich stepped down following the spinoff of FedEx Freight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026
Ten days later, he appeared on paperwork filed with the California secretary of state showing he is now the principal officer of Unidos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026
Steph Gibaut, chief executive officer of Macmillan Jersey, said: "Behind every figure in this report is a person, a family and a moment when support mattered".
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2026
Higazi Shawer al-Tamimi, 70, a shopkeeper who plays a leadership role in the neighbourhood, said he was awakened at 1:00 am by soldiers and a senior officer who said he had to leave.
From Barron's ● Oct. 24, 2026
The officer dipped his head and left the room.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
This Plenum is an opportunity for him to appoint new officers to this body.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2026
The area was briefly closed while officers waited for coroner’s officials to arrive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2026
Ildar Neverov, the head of Arktikugol, was out of town but asked to speak by phone with one of the Norwegian police officers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
For over a century, corporate criminal liability in the United States has held that a corporation acts through its “human agents”—employees, managers, executives, officers.
From Slate ● Oct. 25, 2026
There was the “football”—a black briefcase carried by military officers, handed off from one to the other, kept close to the president at all times.
From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin
For months Mongokuo has had a de facto government, headed by Prince Teh, together with an army of some 10,000 Mongolians and Manchukuoans officered and commanded by Japanese.
From Time Magazine Archive
In an army largely officered by the least promising sons of wealthy families, he was a standout taskmaster and a social flop.
From Time Magazine Archive
Most piano companies are tight little family concerns, often officered by grandsons and great-grandsons of the founders, who look down their noses at the raucous upstarts of wind and string.
From Time Magazine Archive
Three weeks later they would return, clad in a motley array of khaki uniforms and armed with the weapons they had been taught to use in a crash program officered by Algerian "volunteers."
From Time Magazine Archive
It is well officered, Captain Myers being its commander, Lieutenant Pollard, first lieutenant, and Lieutenant Reese, second lieutenant.
From Life Gleanings by T. J. Macon
But decades of corruption in palace and government paid off disastrously in lack of ammunition, inferior arms and cowardly officering.
From Time Magazine Archive
She begins on the right principle by officering her colonies with her best men, naval and military.
From To the Gold Coast for Gold A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Volume I by Sir Richard Francis Burton
"The cult of the Asiatic life" is the latest definition of Christianity given by a recent apologist of Hinduism, one of a small company of Europeans in India officering the Hindu revival.
From New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments by John Morrison
Through one of his agents he succeeded in officering it with well-known Southerners, who knew only that part of the plan which contemplated an increase in prices, and were in sympathy with it.
From Philip Dru Administrator : a Story of Tomorrow 1920 - 1935 by Edward Mandell House
Unquestionably the Russian war did us the service of thoroughly exposing the rottenness of our military system so far as concerned the officering of the army.
From English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. by Graham Everitt
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