chief
Pronunciation: /t͡ʃiːf/
The English word “chief” has 9 meanings listed here.
noun
- The leader or head of a tribe, organisation, business unit, or other group.
- Headship, the status of being a chief or leader.
- The top part of a shield or escutcheon; more specifically, an ordinary consisting of the upper part of the field cut off by a horizontal line, generally occupying the top third.
- The principal part or top of anything.
- An informal term of address.
- An informal term of address for a Native American or First Nations man.
adjective
verb
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English chef, borrowed from Old French chief, from Vulgar Latin capus, from Latin caput, from Proto-Italic *kaput, from Proto-Indo-European *káput, from *kap-, possibly from *kap-, possibly borrowed from a substrate language. Doublet of cape (“point of land”), capo, caput, and chef through Latin (possibly also related to cape (“sleeveless garment”) and cap (“head covering”)…
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.