Word.ws English Dictionary

état major

état major noun: the staff of an army, including all officers above the rank of colonel, all adjutants, inspectors, quartermasters, commissaries, engineers, ordnance officers, paymasters, physicians, signal officers, and judge advocates, and their noncommissioned assistants.

Noun

état major (plural états major)

  1. The staff of an army, including all officers above the rank of colonel, all adjutants, inspectors, quartermasters, commissaries, engineers, ordnance officers, paymasters, physicians, signal officers, and judge advocates, and their noncommissioned assistants.
    • At length seeing the strife between that body and the councils settled, and guessing what would be the issue of it, the General felt that he would lose himself by his silence, without saving Pichegru, and being particularly pressed by his chef d'état Major […]1814, Paul Svinine, Some Details concerning General Moreau, page 123
    • An officer from the dragoons and an officer from the chasseurs joined the état major and were used by the General to take orders to their respective regimental commanders.1914, Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, page 435

Forms of état major

pluralétats major

Origin of état major

Unadapted borrowing from French, from état (“state”) + Latin major (“greater”).

Questions about état major

What does état major mean?
État major means the staff of an army, including all officers above the rank of colonel, all adjutants, inspectors, quartermasters, commissaries, engineers, ordnance officers, paymasters, physicians, signal officers, and judge advocates, and their noncommissioned assistants.
What part of speech is état major?
État major is a noun.
What is the plural of état major?
The plural of état major is états major.

Words near état major in the dictionary

  1. étapes
  2. Étaples
  3. Étard reaction
  4. Étard reactions
  5. état de langue
  6. état major
  7. étatisme
  8. états major
  9. Étaín
  10. étendue
  11. Étigny

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: état major (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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