Word.ws English Dictionary

general staff

general staff noun: a group of officers in charge of an army under the control of the commander-in-chief.

Noun

general staff (plural general staffs)

  1. A group of officers in charge of an army under the control of the commander-in-chief.
    • Meronyms: staff officer, chief of staff
    • It was at most but a vague hint dropped by a certain notorious Parisienne in a jealous mood that had caused suspicion to rest upon the lieutenant. But general staffs are jealous of their secrets, and treason so serious a thing that even a hint of it may not be safely neglected.1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Dancing Girl of Sidi Aissa”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 86

Forms of general staff

pluralgeneral staffs

Questions about general staff

What does general staff mean?
General staff means a group of officers in charge of an army under the control of the commander-in-chief.
What part of speech is general staff?
General staff is a noun.
What is the plural of general staff?
The plural of general staff is general staffs.

Words near general staff in the dictionary

  1. General Santos
  2. General Schedule
  3. general secretaries
  4. general secretary
  5. general semantics
  6. general staff
  7. general staffs
  8. general state
  9. general states
  10. general store
  11. general stores

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: general staff (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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