Dictionary

état major en · NOUN

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French, from état (“state”) + Latin major (“greater”).

Meanings

1. The staff of an army, including all officers above the rank of colonel, all adjutants, inspectors, quartermasters, commissaries, engineers, ordnance officers, paymasters, physicians, signal officers, and judge advocates, and their noncommissioned assistants.
   • At length seeing the strife between that body and the councils settled, and guessing what would be the issue of it, the General felt that he would lose himself by his silence, without saving Pichegru, and being particularly pressed by his chef d'état Major […] 1814, Paul Svinine, Some Details concerning General Moreau, page 123:
   • An officer from the dragoons and an officer from the chasseurs joined the état major and were used by the General to take orders to their respective regimental commanders. 1914, Journal of the United States Cavalry Association, page 435:
   • The key conditions, however, were that Russia had to immediately commence the construction of the strategic lines for which France had long been clamoring, in accordance with plans drawn up by the États-Major of France, and the peacetime preparedness and effectiveness of the Russian army had to be augmented. 2012, Jennifer Siegel, For Peace and Money: French and British Finance in the Service of Tsars and Commissars, page 120:

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