captain general
captain general noun: a commander-in-chief; the head of an armed force.
Noun
captain general (plural captains general or captain generals)
- A commander-in-chief; the head of an armed force.
- And his humanitie or gentlenes[…]was the cause he was deposed of his office of Captaine Generall.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 36, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- “[A] man, without interest or pretension, may present a petition to the captain-general of his majesty's forces, demanding a commission for the first company that shall become vacant, and be as likely to meet with success, as an unsupported author that offers a performance to the stage.”1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
Forms of captain general
| plural | captains general |
|---|---|
| plural | captain generals |
Origin of captain general
Calque of Middle French capitaine général.
Words formed from captain general
- captain-generalcy
Questions about captain general
- What does captain general mean?
- Captain general means a commander-in-chief; the head of an armed force.
- What part of speech is captain general?
- Captain general is a noun.
- What is the plural of captain general?
- The plural of captain general is captains general.
Words near captain general in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: captain general (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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