General

See also: general, général, generál, generał, and general-

English

Etymology 1

Capitalization of general.

Noun

General (plural Generals)

1. (military) The military officer title.
   • 1893, William M[ecklenburg] Polk, “The Kentucky Campaign”, in Leonidas Polk, Bishop and General, volume II, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. and New York: […], page 158:

     General Polk stated, with all respect to General Bragg’s great abilities in the direction of organization and discipline, that he had been wanting in the higher elements of generalship in the conduct of the campaign; and that, in view of the admitted possibilities of the campaign, he considered it a failure—an opinion, he said, he believed Generals Smith and Hardee shared with him. He further said that General Bragg had lost the confidence of his generals, and, in answer to a suggestion from the President of a change of commanders, requested that General Joseph E. Johnston should be assigned to the command of the army, if a change were made.

Etymology 2

Ellipsis of General Hospital.

Proper noun

General

1. (informal, medicine) Short for General Hospital or X General Hospital (where X is a stand-in for another part of the name), a common hospital name.

Anagrams

• enlarge, gleaner, reangle

German

Etymology

Partly via Middle High German general, partly via French général, from Latin generalis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɡe(ː).nəˈʁaːl/ (standard)
• IPA^(key): /ˌɡɛ.nəˈʁaːl/ (alternative in common speech)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aːl

Noun

General m (strong, genitive Generales or Generals, plural Generäle or Generale, feminine Generälin or Generalin)

1. (military) general (officer in any general rank)
2. (military) general (officer in a specific general rank, usually the highest)
3. (Roman Catholicism) general (head of an order)

Usage notes

• The two military senses exist alongside each other. In the German Bundeswehr, all army and air-force officers above the rank of colonel (Oberst) are referred to as Generale and each of them is addressed as Herr General. At the same time, General is a specific rank, namely the highest existing rank, typically held by the inspector general and at most one or two other generals.
• The plural is Generale in the Bundeswehr’s official terminology, but more commonly Generäle otherwise. Singular forms with -e- (des Generales, dem Generale) are exceedingly rare.

Declension

Declension of General [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	General	die	Generäle, Generale
genitive	eines	des	Generales, Generals	der	Generäle, Generale
dative	einem	dem	General, Generale1	den	Generälen, Generalen
accusative	einen	den	General	die	Generäle, Generale

¹Now rare, see notes.

Derived terms

• Brigadegeneral
• Generalfeldmarschall
• Generalität
• Generalleutnant
• Generalmajor
• Generaloberst
• Ordensgeneral

Descendants

• → Bulgarian: генера́л (generál)
• → Russian: генера́л (generál) (see there for further descendants)
• → Serbo-Croatian: general, генерал
• → Slovene: general
• → Swedish: general
  • → Finnish: kenraali

Further reading

• “General” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “General” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “General” in Duden online
• General on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de