semester

American  

[si-mes-ter] / sɪˈmɛs tər /

noun

• semesters
  plural

1. (in many educational institutions) a division constituting half of the regular academic year, lasting typically from 15 to 18 weeks.

2. (in German universities) a session, lasting about six months and including periods of recess.

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semester British  

/ sɪˈmɛstə /

noun

1. (in some universities) either of two divisions of the academic year, ranging from 15 to 18 weeks

2. (in German universities) a session of six months

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Usage

What does semester mean? A semester is one half of an academic year. If an academic year is divided into semesters, it means it is divided into two semesters. (If the year is divided into thirds, each part is called a trimester.)Semesters are typically used in high schools and universities. In many universities, a semester lasts 15 to 18 weeks. In German universities, a semester can last up to six months. Example: I’m thinking about taking a break from school for a semester to work and save some money.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• semestral
  adjective
• semestrial
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• semesters
  plural

Etymology

Origin of semester

1820–30; < German < Latin sēmē ( n ) stris of six months duration < *sex-mēnstris, equivalent to sex six + mēns ( is ) month + -tris adj. suffix (perhaps representing an earlier *mens ( i ) -teros )

Explanation

A semester is half of a school year. In September of your first year of high school, you could describe yourself as "a first-semester freshman." The noun semester comes up often when you're in high school and college. It's an easy way to divide the school year, into two equal halves, or semesters. Sometimes a class lasts for the whole year, and sometimes for just one semester. Occasionally schools split the year into three trimesters just to make things interesting. Originally, semester meant "six months," from the Latin root of the same meaning, semestris.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

semester semesters

She found Finch after a tough semester of graduate school where she felt like she was “falling apart as a person.”

From Slate ● Sep. 6, 2026

For his students next semester, kids raised in a purportedly “post-literature era,” he’s assigning three 700-page novels, he noted mischievously, books by George Eliot, Ralph Ellison and Kiran Desai.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

Each Friday during the spring semester, students practice the basic techniques of archaeological fieldwork while investigating Mission San Francisco de Potano, a centuries-old site in northwest Gainesville.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

Noticing a need for affordable meals, Palacios and fellow USC student Josiah Herfurth spent this past semester hosting $10-per-person lunches at their college apartments, dubbing the offering Cafe 10:31.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2026

Even though it’s not due until the end of the semester, I decide that I’ll finish off a first draft, so my grandparents can see how good the video is.

From "Finding Junie Kim" by Ellen Oh

Instead of taking on summer internships or job-shadowing opportunities between semesters, he worked a retail gig to pay for college.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026

They started Neros when Hichwa, who dropped out of college after three semesters, was 21, and Monroe-Anderson was 19.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026

At that point he was studying remotely having left Harvard after three semesters to join the Philadelphia Union.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

But what looks to some like abandonment feels to others like a new beginning – and that makes me excited to see how high the women in “Rooster” might fly in coming semesters.

From Salon ● May 11, 2026

After several semesters Myma disappeared from the college, saying in her offensive manner, “This place can’t teach me anything I don’t know.”

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole