lieutenant
pronunciation
How to pronounce lieutenant in British English:
UK [lefˈtenənt]
How to pronounce lieutenant in American English:
US [luːˈtenənt]
-
- Noun:
- a commissioned military officer
- an officer in a police force
- an assistant with power to act when his superior is absent
- 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
Word Origin
- lieutenant
- lieutenant: [14] Etymologically, a lieutenant is someone who ‘holds the place’ of another (more senior) officer – that is, deputizes for him. The word comes from French lieutenant, a compound formed from lieu ‘place’ and tenant (source of English tenant). Lieu (borrowed independently by English as lieu [13] in the phrase ‘in lieu of’) comes in turn from Latin locus ‘place’, source of English local. Locum tenens [17] (or locum for short) ‘temporary replacement’, literally ‘holding the place’, is thus a parallel formation with lieutenant.Spellings of lieutenant with -f-, indicating the still current British pronunciation /lef-/, first appear as early as the 14th century.=> lieu, local, tenant
- lieutenant (n.)
- late 14c., "one who takes the place of another," from Old French lieu tenant "substitute, deputy," literally "placeholder," from lieu "place" (see lieu) + tenant, present participle of tenir "to hold" (see tenant). The notion is of a "substitute" for higher authority. Specific military sense of "officer next in rank to a captain" is from 1570s. Pronunciation with lef- is common in Britain, and spellings to reflect it date back to 14c., but the origin of this is a mystery (OED rejects suggestion that it comes from old confusion of -u- and -v-).
Example
- 1. Asked one of them , a naval lieutenant .
- 2. A young man of 23 years of age named robert fitzroy was a lieutenant on this voyage .
- 3. Then a warthog commanded by lieutenant andrew maggs was also fired on .
- 4. As monkeys howl in the jungle canopy above , a weary congolese army lieutenant makes no secret of his frustration .
- 5. He knew that lieutenant amundsen 's survey team worked fast , but they had been in-system less than fifteen minutes .