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: ''This article is about the OF-5 rank Colonel in Anglophone countries. For the equivalent rank in Slavophone armed forces see Polkovnik; in Austria and Germany see Oberst. Colonel (abbreviated Col., Col or COL and pronounced , similar to "kernel") is a senior military officer rank below the general officer ranks. However, in some small military forces, such as those of Iceland or the Vatican, colonel is the highest rank. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. Historically, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of a regiment in an army. Modern usage varies greatly. The rank of colonel is typically above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The rank above colonel is typically called brigadier, brigade general or brigadier general. Equivalent naval ranks may be called captain or ship-of-the-line captain. In the Commonwealth air force rank system, the equivalent rank is group captain. ==History and origins== The word "colonel" derives from the same root as the word "column" (Italian: ''colonna'') and means "of a column", and, by implication, "commander of a column". The word "colonel" is therefore linked to the word "column" in a similar way that "brigadier" is linked to "brigade", although in English this relationship is not immediately obvious. By the end of the late medieval period, a group of "companies" was referred to as a "column" of an army. Since the word is believed to derive from sixteenth-century Italian, it was presumably first used by Italian city states in that century. The first use of colonel as a rank in a national army was in the French "National Legions" (''Légions nationales'') created by King Francis I by his decree of 1534. Building on the military reforms of Louis XII's decree of 1509, he modernized the organization of the French royal army. Each colonel commanded a legion with a theoretical strength of six thousand men. With the shift from primarily mercenary to primarily national armies in the course of the seventeenth century, a colonel (normally a member of the aristocracy) became a holder (German ''Inhaber'') or proprietor of a military contract with a sovereign. The colonel purchased the regimental contract — the right to hold the regiment — from the previous holder of that right or directly from the sovereign when a new regiment was formed or an incumbent was killed. The Spanish equivalent rank of ''coronel'', was used by the Spanish tercios in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed 'the Great Captain', divided his armies in 'coronelías' or colonelcies, each led by a ''coronel'' (colonel).〔(Los tercios españoles. La batalla de Pavía ) at militar.org.ua (in Spanish, unspecified authorship)〕 However, the Spanish word probably derives from a different origin, in that it appears to designate an officer of the crown (''corona'', thus the rank ''coronel''), rather than an officer of the column (''columna'', which would give the word ''columnal''). This makes the Spanish word ''coronel'' probably cognate with the English word "coroner". The modern English pronunciation of the word is speculated to be due to the Spanish variant.〔(How Did "Colonel" Become "Ker-nul"? )〕 As the office of colonel became an established practice, the colonel became the senior captain in a group of companies that were all sworn to observe his personal authority — to be ruled or regimented by him. This regiment, or governance, was to some extent embodied in a contract and set of written rules, also referred to as the colonel's regiment or standing regulation(s). By extension, the group of companies subject to a colonel's regiment (in the foregoing sense) came to be referred to as his regiment (in the modern sense) as well. In French usage of this period, the senior colonel in the army or, in a field force, the senior military contractor, was the colonel general and, in the absence of the sovereign or his designate, the colonel general might serve as the commander of a force. The position, however, was primarily contractual and it became progressively more of a functionless sinecure. (The head of a single regiment or demi-brigade would be called a 'mestre de camp' or, after the Revolution, a 'chef de brigade'.) By the late 19th century, colonel was a professional military rank though still held typically by an officer in command of a regiment or equivalent unit. Along with other ranks, it has become progressively more a matter of ranked duties, qualifications and experience and of corresponding titles and pay scale than of functional office in a particular organization. As European military influence expanded throughout the world, the rank of colonel became adopted by nearly every nation (albeit under a variety of names). With the rise of communism, some of the large communist militaries saw fit to expand the colonel rank into several grades, resulting in the unique senior colonel rank, which was found and is still used in such nations as China and North Korea. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Colonel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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