assistant professor

American

noun

a teacher in a college or university who ranks above an instructor and below an associate professor.

assistant professor British

noun

a university teacher lower in rank than an associate professor

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

assistant professorship

noun

Etymology

Origin of assistant professor

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

assistant professor

Natasha Poularikas is an assistant professor and the director of the master’s program in supply-chain management at the University of Oklahoma’s Michael F. Price College of Business.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2026

Bradford Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, contributed as a co-author.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2026

Barone is an assistant professor in the Biology Department of Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences and is affiliated with Bio-X and the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2026

El-Sayed left a position as an assistant professor at Columbia University to work in public health, where he won awards for his success in protecting children’s health from environmental pollution.

From Salon ● Oct. 19, 2026

Ashoke has been hired as an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the university.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023