Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Chieftain - The leader or head of a group, especially of a clan or tribe. Middle English cheftain, from Old French chevetain, from Late Latin capitneus, from Latin caput, head. The Chieftain is also a name of a British tank, developed in the early 1970's by the UK together with Israel and was one of the most advance tank of its time. Following the expelling of Israel from the Chieftain tank program, Israel initiated its own tank program, resulting in the Merkava. This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by fixing it. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.