Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The leader or head of a group, especially of a clan or tribe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A captain, leader, or commander; a chief; the head of a troop, army, or clan.
  • noun Synonyms Commander, Leader, etc. See chief.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A captain, leader, or commander; a chief; the head of a troop, army, or clan.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A leader of a clan or tribe.
  • noun A leader of a group, e.g. a robbers' chieftain.
  • noun capitalized The name of a British military tank.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the head of a tribe or clan
  • noun the leader of a group of people

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English cheftain, from Old French chevetain, from Late Latin capitāneus, from Latin caput, head; see kaput- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English cheftayne, a variant of Old French chevetaine, from Late Latin capitaneus (English captain), from Latin caput ("head"), from Proto-Indo-European *kauput- (English head).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word chieftain.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.