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English colonel is pronounced the same as kernel. This seems odd, but there is an explanation. In many languages when a word contains two identical or similar sounds, one of these sounds will often change over a period of time. This kind of change is called dissimilation. So when the Italian word colonello was taken into French, it became coronel; and the word was borrowed by the English from the French in this form. Later the spelling colonel came to be used in order to reflect the Italian origin of the word. But by then the pronunciation with r was well established.
Examples of colonel in a Sentence
Daniel Estrin, NPR, 5 Apr. 2024
On Friday, the Israeli military announced that two officers — a reserve colonel and a major — would be dismissed from their positions.
—Adam Rasgon, New York Times, 5 Apr. 2024
Also Friday, Israel announced that two officers – a colonel and major – had been sacked, and three others including a general had been reprimanded, following a preliminary military investigation into the drone strikes on the convoy.
—Taylor Luck, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Apr. 2024
The colonel said that after the Israeli forces left the hospital after the first raid in November, Hamas fighters streamed back into the complex to take up arms, seek shelter and mix with civilians.
—Lorenzo Tugnoli, Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2024
The book, written by an Army colonel, argued that the Yanomami were not a real Indigenous community but the invention of an international cabal that intended to take over the Amazon.
—Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2024
Now imagine some Russian colonel commanding his battalion from a Ladoga’s cozy interior during an attack on Ukrainian forces around Kreminna.
—David Axe, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024
It was turned into a film in 1957 starring Alec Guinness, as the delusional colonel in charge of the British prisoners at a Japanese prison camp, and William Holden, as an American Navy commander who escapes the camp and joins a commando mission to destroy the bridge.
—Richard Sandomir, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2024
The score, which will be performed by a nine-member orchestra, reflects the colonel’s profound bewilderment.
—Mary Carole McCauley, Baltimore Sun, 25 Jan. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'colonel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near colonel
Cite this Entry
“Colonel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonel. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
an altered form of earlier coronel "colonel," from early French coronel (same meaning), from early Italian colonnello "colonel, column of soldiers," derived from Latin columna "column" — related to column
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