colonel
co·lo·nel
noun
Origin
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 Italian form (via translations of Italian military manuals), and differing pronunciations (either with "r" or "l") coexisted until around 1650, where it came to be pronounced with "r" only. Spanish and Portuguese coronel, also from Italian, shows similar evolution by dissimilation and perhaps by influence of corona.
Phrases
- bird colonel
- chickens for Colonel Sanders
- colonel commandant
- colonel general
- full colonel
- full eagle colonel
- honorary colonel
- Kentucky colonel
Related words
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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.