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Lieutenant

 - 5 dictionary results

lieu⋅ten⋅ant

[loo-ten-uhnt; in Brit. use, except in the navy, lef-ten-uhnt]
–noun
1. Military.
a. first lieutenant.
b. second lieutenant.
2. U.S. Navy. a commissioned officer ranking between lieutenant junior grade and lieutenant commander.
3. a person who holds an office, civil or military, in subordination to a superior for whom he or she acts: If he can't attend, he will send his lieutenant.

Origin:
1325–75; ME < MF, n. use of adj. phrase lieu tenant place-holding. See locum tenens, lieu, tenant
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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lieu·ten·ant   (lōō-těn'ənt)   
n.  
    1. Abbr. LT or Lt. A commissioned rank in the U.S. Navy or Coast Guard that is above lieutenant junior grade and below lieutenant commander.

    2. A first lieutenant.

    3. A second lieutenant.

    4. One who holds the rank of lieutenant, first lieutenant, or second lieutenant.

  1. (lěf-těn'ənt) A commissioned officer in the British and Canadian navies ranking just below a lieutenant commander.

  2. An officer in a police or fire department ranking below a captain.

  3. One who acts in place of or represents a superior; an assistant or deputy: the organized crime figure and his lieutenants. See Synonyms at assistant.


[Middle English, deputy, from Old French : lieu, lieu; see lieu + tenant, present participle of tenir, to hold (from Latin tenēre; see ten- in Indo-European roots).]
lieu·ten'an·cy n.
Word History: What is the connection between a lieutenant governor and a lieutenant in the army? In the etymology of the word lieutenant, at least, the connection lies in their holding a place; that is, the word lieutenant is from an Old French compound made up of lieu, "place," and tenant, "holding." The word in Old French and the borrowed Middle English word lieutenant, first recorded near the end of the 14th century, referred to a person who acted for another as a deputy. This usage has survived, for example, in our term lieutenant governor, the deputy of the governor and the one who replaces the governor if need be. In military parlance lieutenant appears by itself as well as in compounds such as first lieutenant and second lieutenant, which muddy the water a bit, but the original notion of the word in military usage was that the officer it referred to ranked below the next one up and could replace him if need be. A lieutenant in the U.S. Army could thus step into the shoes of a captain.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

lieutenant 
c.1375, "one who takes the place of another," from O.Fr. lieu tenant "substitute," lit. "placeholder," from lieu "place" + tenant, prp. of tenir "to hold." The notion is of a "substitute" for higher authority. Specific military sense of "officer next in rank to a captain" is from 1578. Pronunciation with lef- is common in Britain, and spellings to reflect it date back to 14c., but the origin of it is mysterious.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Bible Dictionary

Lieutenant

(only in A.V. Esther 3:12; 8:9; 9:3; Ezra 8:36), a governor or viceroy of a Persian province having both military and civil power. Correctly rendered in the Revised Version "satrap."

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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Encyclopedia

lieutenant

company grade officer, the lowest rank of commissioned officer in most armies of the world. The lieutenant normally commands a small tactical unit such as a platoon.

Learn more about lieutenant with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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