Word.ws English Dictionary

in chief

/ɪn t͡ʃiːf/

in chief adjective: executive, the highest in command.

Adjective

in chief

  1. Executive, the highest in command.
  2. (humorous) The chief example; the worst offender.
    • No, it can't be Bill who gets assigned to this task. That dude is the slacker in chief around here.
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in, chief. In the chief of the escutcheon.
    • Erm. a fesse betw. two demi lions in chief and three mascles in base gu.1844, John Burke, Bernard Burke, Encyclopædia of Heraldry, Or General Armory of England, Scotland and Ireland, page 375
    • Arg. a saltire betw. a cross-gate in chief and in base and a crescent in each flank gu. / HEGENS, Scotland. Arg. a saltire engr. betw. a mullet in chief two crescents in flanks and a cross crosslet fitchy in base gu.1874, John Woody Papworth, An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms Belonging to Families in Great Britain and Ireland: Forming an Extensive Ordinary of British Armorials : Upon an Entirely New...

Words formed from in chief

Words that rhyme with in chief

17 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about in chief

What does in chief mean?
In chief means executive, the highest in command.
What part of speech is in chief?
In chief is an adjective.
How do you pronounce in chief?
In chief is pronounced /ɪn t͡ʃiːf/.

Words near in chief in the dictionary

  1. in case
  2. in case of
  3. in character
  4. in charge
  5. in check
  6. in chief
  7. in chorus
  8. in church every time the doors are open
  9. in circles
  10. in circulation
  11. in close neighborhood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in chief (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “in chief.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_chief. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.