Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A commissioned rank in the US Navy or Coast Guard that is above lieutenant junior grade and below lieutenant commander.
- noun A first lieutenant.
- noun A second lieutenant.
- noun One who holds the rank of lieutenant, first lieutenant, or second lieutenant.
- noun A commissioned officer in the British and Canadian navies ranking just below a lieutenant commander.
- noun An officer in a police or fire department ranking below a captain.
- noun One who acts in place of or represents a superior; an assistant or deputy.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In archery, the winner of a lieutenancy in a shooting-match.
- noun In general, one who holds the place of another in the performance of any duty or function; one authorized to act in lieu of another, or employed to carry out his will or purposes; the substitute or representative of a superior.
- noun One who holds an office, civil or military, in subordination to or as the representative of a superior; an officer authorized to perform certain functions in the absence or under the orders of another: as, the lieutenant of the Tower of London; the lord lieutenant of Ireland or of an English county (considered the direct representative of the sovereign).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An officer who supplies the place of a superior in his absence; a representative of, or substitute for, another in the performance of any duty.
- noun A commissioned officer in the army, next below a captain.
- noun A commissioned officer in the British navy, in rank next below a commander.
- noun A commissioned officer in the United States navy, in rank next below a lieutenant commander.
- noun [Eng.] the title of any one of the deputies or assistants of the lord lieutenant of a county.
- noun an army officer next in rank above major, and below colonel.
- noun an officer in the United States navy, in rank next below a commander and next above a lieutenant.
- noun See in Vocabulary.
- noun [U. S.], [Eng.] A deputy governor acting as the chief civil officer of one of several colonies under a governor general.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun military The lowest
commissioned officer rank or ranks in many military forces. - noun A person who executes the plans and directives of another.
- adjective A military grade that is junior to the grade the adjective modifies:
lieutenant colonel ,lieutenant general ,lieutenant commander .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a commissioned military officer
- noun an assistant with power to act when his superior is absent
- noun an officer in a police force
- noun an officer holding a commissioned rank in the United States Navy or the United States Coast Guard; below lieutenant commander and above lieutenant junior grade
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In 1862 ensign was provided in the Navy to correspond to second lieutenant; and the term lieutenant commanding became lieutenant commander.
The Armed Forces Officer Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 United States. Dept. of Defense
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Simpson and Schnabel were "assistants" in the way a lieutenant is an "assistant" to a colonel.
Blogging Charlie Wilson's War: The movie, again, because a couple of things are still bugging me 2008
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Simpson and Schnabel were "assistants" in the way a lieutenant is an "assistant" to a colonel.
Lance Mannion: 2008
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In a way, the lieutenant is an extension of the king's self.
Lieutenants, sergeants, squires, free-lances, and the hero-king 2008
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Rico muses upon it when his rank, third lieutenant, is the same as that of the luckless junior officer in his version of thestory.
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His closest lieutenant is perhaps the most socially-conservative elected official in the state, Democrat or Republican, John Rogers.
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Though DarkRiver sentinel Mercy is feeling the pressure to mate, she savagely resists when Riley Kincaid, a lieutenant from the SnowDancer pack, tries to possess her.
Thank you & Branded By Fire Blurb Nalini Singh 2009
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Though DarkRiver sentinel Mercy is feeling the pressure to mate, she savagely resists when Riley Kincaid, a lieutenant from the SnowDancer pack, tries to possess her.
Archive 2009-03-01 Nalini Singh 2009
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A Sooner Poll last month had Fallin, a popular former three-term lieutenant governor and currently a member of the House, leading Askins and Edmondson by double-digits.
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In the general election, both Edmondson and Askins are within single digits of Fallin -- a popular former three-term lieutenant governor; Fallin leads Edmonson 47 percent to 39 percent and Askins 46 percent to 40 percent.
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In 1998, “As It Happens,” a CBC Radio program, asked her about a controversy over an elementary-school textbook’s suggestion that “lieutenant” should be pronounced as “LEW-tenant,” which is widely seen as American practice in Canada, rather than “LEF-tenant,” the British form used by Canada’s military.
Katherine Barber, Who Defined Canadian English, Is Dead at 61 By 2021
qroqqa commented on the word lieutenant
The pronunciation with /f/ has no clear explanation, but both modern pronunciations are represented in the earliest uses in English: late 14th-century spellings include lutenand, luf-tenand, lieutenant, lutenaunt, leeftenaunt (with lutenant, levetenaunt as variants of the last in other copies of the manuscript).
August 14, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word lieutenant
I'm rather fond of the German Leutnant. It just feels official and all stand-up-straighty.
August 14, 2008
reesetee commented on the word lieutenant
Really? I think it's be far stand-up-straightier with the I.
August 14, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word lieutenant
Well, it's pronounced LOYT-nant. Which I find so... you know... stand-up-straighty.
August 15, 2008
reesetee commented on the word lieutenant
Ah. Not all looing down, like lieutenant.
August 15, 2008
qroqqa commented on the word lieutenant
I would imagine most German ranks have a certain, ah, crispness to them. The slouching Stabsgefreiter, the innocuous Unterfeldwebel, the genial Generalmajor . . . no, the images just aren't coming through.
August 15, 2008