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Common military ranks
Officers
Seamen, soldiers and airmen

This article is about the military rank. For other uses, see Major (disambiguation).

"Maj" redirects here. For the epic poem by Karel Hynek Mácha, see Máj.

In many European languages, the term Major is a military rank, implying seniority at one of usually various levels of rank. For example:

"General-Major" or "Major-General", denoting a senior ranking general officer.
"Captain-Major", denoting a mid-level command status officer (immediately superior to the rank of a land-forces Captain but immediately subordinate to the ranks of Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel.
"Sergeant-Major" denotes the most senior sergeant of a large military unit.

In the US Army and US Marine Corps, a Major is typically a staff officer, either a battalion Executive Officer (XO) (second in command), or a battalion staff officer such as the Operations Officer (S-3).

Most often, when the term 'major' occurs unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of a land-forces 'captain'. In some countries, notably in France, an unhyphenated "major" derives from "sergeant-major", a senior-level sub-officer rank.