commander
Pluralcommanders
- 1A person who controls and directs a military or naval organization.
The commander coordinated air and ground forces during the offensive.
As fleet commander, she answered directly to the admiralty.
Similarcommandant, leader, chief, head, captain
Note
The general sense, and the one the word was built for: Middle English comaundour, borrowed from Old French comandeor, from comander, and readable in English simply as command plus -er. It usually takes of before the force led, as in commander of NATO forces, or takes a noun in front, as in post commanders or fleet commander. Unlike the naval rank, it names a role, not a grade.
- 2A naval officer holding a rank above lieutenant commander and below captain.
The commander relayed the captain's orders to the engine room.
He served as a commander aboard a frigate before his promotion.
Note
A grade, not a job. An officer can hold this rank without leading anything, and a fleet's commander may well outrank it. As a title it is capitalized and used in direct address. In BioWare's Mass Effect 3 (2012), Anderson restores Shepard's standing with a pointed "Consider yourself reinstated... Commander." Lieutenant commander sits just below it on the ladder, so read the full title carefully.
- 3
- 4
- 5A grade of membership in an order of honor, as in the title Commander of the Legion of Honor.
The president named the violinist a commander of the order of arts.
He was promoted from officer to commander within the chivalric order.
- 6A sergeant or a soldier of higher rank.
Each commander supervised a squad of junior enlisted soldiers.
The base assigned a commander to oversee every training platoon.
Note
Singapore's military usage draws the line differently: commander marks a threshold rather than a post, covering every soldier from sergeant upward. A newly promoted sergeant counts as a commander here, even though elsewhere the word suggests someone at the head of a whole unit, as in the general military sense. Outside a Singaporean military setting, expect readers to take it that broader way.
- 7
- 8Any of several Asian butterflies of the genus Moduza, in the brush-footed family Nymphalidae.
The commander glided between the canopy flowers at midday.
Collectors prize the commander for its striking banded wings.
Less common meaning
- 9The chief officer in charge of a commandry, an estate or branch of a military or religious order.
The commander summoned the brethren to discuss the failing harvest.
Each commander reported the commandry's revenues to the grand master.
Note
This sense belongs to the military and religious orders, such as the Templars or Hospitallers, whose lands were divided into local houses called commandries. Each house was run by its commander, who answered for its revenues and resident brethren. The sense is obsolete, so keep it for historical writing about those orders. Elsewhere, readers will take commander as the military leader unless the context makes the order plain.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of commander apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
From Middle English comaundour, borrowed from Old French comandeor, from comander ('to command'). By surface analysis, it is command + -er.