Word.ws English Dictionary

second in command

second in command is the alternative spelling of second-in-command.

Meaning of second-in-command

Noun

second-in-command (plural seconds-in-command)

  1. Somebody ranking next below a commander.
  2. Someone ranking next below the person in charge.
    • Allan was first William Buddicom's and then Trevithick's second-in-command, at Edge Hill and at Crewe successively, for the period of 13½ years from February, 1840, to September, 1853, when he left Crewe to become Superintendent of the Scottish Central Railway.1951 June, Dr. W. H. Chaloner, “Alexander Allan's Own Claim”, in Railway Magazine, page 416
    Synonyms:
    number two

Forms of second in command

pluralseconds in command

Questions about second in command

What is second in command the alternative spelling of?
Second in command is the alternative spelling of second-in-command.

Words near second in command in the dictionary

  1. second homes
  2. second impact syndrome
  3. second impact syndromes
  4. second imperative
  5. second imperatives
  6. second in command
  7. Second Intermediate Period
  8. second inversion
  9. second inversions
  10. second island chain
  11. second joint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second in command (page history and authors); second-in-command (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: “second in command.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/second_in_command. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.