colonel
- A senior military officer ranking above a lieutenant colonel and below a brigadier general.
In a sentence
- The colonel reviewed her troops before the early morning exercise began.
- He was promoted to colonel after twenty years of distinguished service in the army.
Usage note. Pronunciation is famously tricky: it is said KER-nel because the word entered English via the French form 'coronel'; the 'l' spelling came later from Italian but the old pronunciation stuck.
Where it comes from
English colonel — “senior army officer” · entered English 16th c.
From Middle French 'coronel', itself from Italian 'colonnello', a diminutive of 'colonna' (column), referring to the leader of a column of troops. The word entered English in the mid-16th century in the French form 'coronel', giving the surviving pronunciation, before the spelling was later revised toward the Italian form 'colonel'. This split between spelling and pronunciation is the result of competing French and Italian influences.