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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
Stephanie Petit, People.com, 11 Apr. 2025
The film’s synopsis reads: As war looms, a gifted glassmaker and his father see their world disrupted by an army colonel and his violinist daughter.
—Zac Ntim, Deadline, 11 Apr. 2025
Sean Penn co-stars as the film’s main villain, a steely-eyed colonel who looked pretty frigging scary in the footage, while Benicio del Toro is DiCaprio’s gun-toting, gonzo comrade.
—Brent Lang, Variety, 2 Apr. 2025
In Tallinn, at the airport, British soldiers were eating hamburgers in the food court, and Prince William, colonel in chief of the Mercian Regiment, was in town to inspect his troops at a British camp just 100 miles from the Russian border.
—Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 7 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Colonel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colonel. Accessed 31 May. 2025.
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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