colonel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   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).

   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.

2. 2
   noun

   A military leader, distinct from the modern professional military rank.

   General Charles-Maximilian Fiennes was made colonel of the army.

3. 3
   noun

   An honorary civilian title bestowed by some southern US states, most commonly Kentucky; notably Colonel Sanders of KFC.

   "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.

4. 4
   verb

   To act as or like a colonel.

   Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, And out he rode Colonelling.

First attested in the 1540s, 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. The French spelling was reformed late 16th century. The English spelling was modified in 1580s in learned writing to conform to the Itali...

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