colonel

colonel · noun, verb¹

1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kelH-“to rise, be elevated, be prominent”
2. Latin · derived fromcolumna“pillar”
3. Old Italian · derived fromcolonnello“the officer of a small company of soldiers (column) that marched at the head of a regiment”
4. Middle French · borrowed fromcoronnel
5. English todaycolonel

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.

Colonel · noun²

Capitalization of colonel.

Words from the same roots