is a German word. Spelled with a capital O, "" is a noun and defines the military rank of colonel or
group captain. Spelled with a lower case o, or "", it is an adjective, meaning "superior, top, topmost, uppermost, highest, chief, head, first, principal, or supreme". Both usages derive from the
superlative of , "the upper" or "the uppermost". As a
family name,
Oberst is common in the southwest of Germany, in the area known as the Black Forest (
Schwarzwald). The name is also concentrated in the north-central cantons of Switzerland (
Aargau &
Zürich). Here the Swiss version of
Oberst is spelled
Obrist. The name first appeared in the thirteenth century in the German-Swiss border area, and early forms were
Zoberist and
Oberist. The name most likely refers to the "tribe that lives the highest on the mountain" or "the family that lives the highest in the village". Translated as "superior" or "supreme", the rank of
Oberst can trace its origins to the
Middle Ages where the term most likely described the senior
knight on a battlefield or the
senior captain in a regiment. With the emergence of professional armies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an
Oberst became the commander of
regiment or
battalion-sized formations. By the eighteenth century, were typically afforded
aides or
lieutenants, often titled . This led to formation of the modern German rank of the same name, translated as
lieutenant colonel. ==Austria==