Word.ws English Dictionary

yellow admiral

yellow admiral noun: a post-captain promoted to the rank of rear admiral on the understanding that he will immediately retire without having actually served at that rank.

Noun

yellow admiral (plural yellow admirals)

  1. (historical) A post-captain promoted to the rank of rear admiral on the understanding that he will immediately retire without having actually served at that rank.
    • Happiness, in her estimation, consists […] of being appealed to by the yellow admirals and gouty generals, as a person of great sagacity in cases, whether of medicine, or cards, or anecdote […].1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 328
  2. A large butterfly, Vanessa itea, native to Australia and New Zealand, with yellow markings on the forewings.

Forms of yellow admiral

pluralyellow admirals

Questions about yellow admiral

What does yellow admiral mean?
Yellow admiral means a post-captain promoted to the rank of rear admiral on the understanding that he will immediately retire without having actually served at that rank.
What part of speech is yellow admiral?
Yellow admiral is a noun.
What is the plural of yellow admiral?
The plural of yellow admiral is yellow admirals.

Words near yellow admiral in the dictionary

  1. yellochs
  2. yellow
  3. yellow 2G
  4. yellow acacia
  5. yellow acacias
  6. yellow admiral
  7. yellow admirals
  8. yellow anaconda
  9. yellow anacondas
  10. yellow anemone
  11. yellow anemones

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: yellow admiral (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: “yellow admiral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/yellow_admiral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.