wing commander
4
8.4
- noun
- /wɪŋ kəˈmɑːndə/
- UK
:
comandante de ala
- Col. Sean Tyler will be responsible for running the base's operations as the 633rd Air Base wing commander, according to a news release.
- air force wing commander
Examples
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He explained to Patricia that by the end of his twenty-year military career, he'd reached the level of wing commander.
Fiction book (1999) -
I was a wing commander, Royal Air Force.
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Wing Commander James Wright, Royal British Air Force.
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Tell the wing commander at Homestead the plane's in the air.
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Wing Commander, this is Special Agent Sinclair.
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Yes, yes, I have news, Wing Commander, regarding Marianne Beauséjour.
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I was a wing commander in the Royal Air Force, overseeing flight operations.
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The pilots were briefed by the wing commander before their deployment.
How Senior
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is fully compositional: 'wing' (an air force formation) + 'commander' (an officer) yields an officer who commands a wing. While the precise position in the rank hierarchy (above squadron leader/below group captain) is specialist knowledge, the basic meaning 'officer in charge of a wing' is directly derivable from the constituents and would be clear to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Wing commander comes from the idea of a commander of a wing, where a 'wing' is a group of aircraft and crews. That's why today it means an officer who is in charge at that level — above a squadron leader but below a group captain.