# colonel
## English
### Alternative forms

* coronel (obsolete)
* col., Col. (abbreviation)

### Etymology

First attested 1548, from Middle French coronnel, from Old Italian colonnello (“the officer of a small company of soldiers (column) that marched at the head of a regiment”), from compagnia colonnella (“little column company”), from Latin columna (“pillar”), originally a collateral form of columen, contraction culmen (“a pillar, top, crown, summit”), o-grade form from a Proto-Indo-European *kelH- (“to rise, be elevated, be prominent”). See hill, holm.

### Pronunciation

* (UK) IPA: /ˈkɜːnəl/
* (US) IPA: /ˈkɝnəl/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Homophone: kernel
* Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)nəl
The anomalous pronunciation is a holdover of the pronunciation of the earlier, now obsolete form coronel, which was used simultaneously for a while.

### Noun

colonel (plural colonels)
* A commissioned officer in an armed military organization, typically the highest rank before flag officer ranks (generals). It is generally found in armies, air forces or naval infantry (marines).
** 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter I, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:The colonel and his sponsor made a queer contrast: Greystone long and stringy, with a face that seemed as if a cold wind was eternally playing on it. […] But there was not a more lascivious reprobate and gourmand in all London than this same Greystone.
* (historical) A military leader, distinct from the modern professional military rank.
** 2009, Ranulph Fiennes, chapter 21, in Mad Dogs and Englishmen: An Expedition Round My Family, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 284:General Charles-Maximilian Fiennes was made colonel of the army.
* An honorary civilian title bestowed by some southern US states, most commonly Kentucky; notably Colonel Sanders of KFC.
** 2002, Kate Chopin and Anna Julia Cooper, “Critiquing Kentucky and the South”, in The Southern Literary Journal‎, volume 35, number 1, page 127:"Colonel" was often used as an honorific, indicating no actual military service: between 1792 and 1916, according to Ron Bryant, a curator at the Kentucky Historical Society, 400 of the 650 colonels commissioned were honorary.
* (Southern US, dated) An informal title used to address an elderly man.
* (US) A form of address for an auctioneer, from the American Civil War practice of commanding officers organizing the public sale of seized goods.

#### Usage notes

* When used as a title, it is always capitalized.

#### Derived terms

* bird colonel (chicken colonel, full bird colonel)
* chickens for Colonel Sanders
* coloneless
* colonel general
* colonel-in-chief
* colonelship
* full colonel
* full eagle colonel
* half-colonel
* honorary colonel
* Kentucky colonel
* lieutenant colonel (lieutenant-colonel)
* senior colonel

#### Related terms

* colonelcy
* colonel-general
* royal colonel

#### Translations
### Verb

colonel (third-person singular simple present colonels, present participle coloneling or colonelling, simple past and past participle coloneled or colonelled)
* (intransitive) To act as or like a colonel.

### References

* ↑ https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-col1.htm

## French
### Alternative forms

* colonnel, coronel, coronnel (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Italian colonnello. Compare Middle French coronel, borrowed earlier from the same source. See English colonel for more.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kɔ.lɔ.nɛl/
* Audio; “un colonel”:(file)

### Noun

colonel m (plural colonels, feminine colonelle)
* a colonel, highest commissioned officer below generals
* an ice cream dessert consisting of lemon sherbet and vodka

#### Related terms

* colonel-général
* lieutenant-colonel

### Further reading

* “colonel”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Romanian
### Etymology 1

Borrowed from French colonel, from Middle French coronel, which see.

#### Noun

colonel m (plural colonei)
* colonel (military officer above lieutenant-colonel and below all generals)

##### Declension
### Etymology 2

Borrowed from German Kolonel.

#### Noun

colonel n (uncountable)
* glyph (a letter in a type of font)