FIRST LIEUTENANT

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does first lieutenant mean? 

• FIRST LIEUTENANT (noun)
  The noun FIRST LIEUTENANT has 1 sense:

1. a commissioned officer in the Army or Air Force or Marines ranking above a 2nd lieutenant and below a captain

  Familiarity information: FIRST LIEUTENANT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FIRST LIEUTENANT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A commissioned officer in the Army or Air Force or Marines ranking above a 2nd lieutenant and below a captain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

1st lieutenant; first lieutenant

Hypernyms ("first lieutenant" is a kind of...):

lieutenant (a commissioned military officer)

 Context examples 

But McArdle was his first lieutenant, and it was he that we knew.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It is said in the fleet that an oath has never passed his lips, Rodney, though how he managed when he was first lieutenant of a raw crew is more than I can conceive.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William's mind, and he was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned subjects, all of which ended, if they did not begin, in praise of the Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for an action with some superior force, which (supposing the first lieutenant out of the way, and William was not very merciful to the first lieutenant) was to give himself the next step as soon as possible, or speculations upon prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, with only the reservation of enough to make the little cottage comfortable, in which he and Fanny were to pass all their middle and later life together.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia; and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting in the eyes of all the ladies.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

From thence, as a reward for his services, he was transferred as first lieutenant to the Aurora frigate, engaged in cutting off supplies from Genoa, and in her he still remained until long after peace was declared.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)