English pronunciation · Words Starting with C
Colonel Pronunciation
Colonel is pronounced KUR-nuhl, IPA /ˈkɝnəl/.
KUR-nuhl
US /ˈkɝnəl/ · UK /ˈkɜːnəl/
Syllables: KUR · nuhl (2 syllables, stress on syllable 1)
noun: A senior officer in the army, air force, or marines, ranking above a lieutenant colonel and below a brigadier or brigadier general.
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Colonel in a Sentence
- The colonel gave the order to move at dawn.
- She was promoted to colonel after twenty years of service.
- Colonel Harris will brief the press this afternoon.
Common Mispronunciations of Colonel
Not KOL-uh-nel
Nothing in the spelling predicts the sound. English borrowed the word from French in two forms, coronel and colonel, kept the spelling of one and the pronunciation of the other, and the result is a word said exactly like kernel.
Not koh-loh-NEL
Three syllables and final stress is how the letters look, but the word has two syllables and the stress is on the first.
Tip: Colonel is pronounced exactly like kernel, the inside of a nut or a grain of corn. The l is silent, the o is not what it seems, and there is an r in the sound that is nowhere in the spelling.
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