The lack of Polish fixed equivalents of Austro-Hungarian military rank names is caused by the fact that these terms are culture-bound elements that belong to the historical legal reality and by the incongruence of A-H and Polish (conceptual) military rank systems. This lack leaves a great multitude of possible solu-tions. In the article the compared systems of military ranks are perceived as systems of concepts and ana-lyzed in terms of Jost Trier’s lexical field theory. This approach is supported with some examples of monolingual dictionary definitions of military ranks that are clearly based on an item’s relations within a field. Despite some etymological parallels between A-H and Polish military rank names the systems they constitute belong to different “traditions” of military terminology — respectively to the German and French — which is to be observed mainly in the names of general ranks. Being bilateral signs, the rank names allow different translation solutions that constitute a continuum spread between two poles: a formal and a conceptual one that are analogous to the poles of formal and dynamic (conceptual) equivalence. The first one is achieved mainly by calques or loan translations whereas the latter by using ranks with similar position within the system.