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assistant professor

American  

noun

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


assistant professor British  

noun

  1. 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

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:

An agreement between the US and China to regulate AI development is "next to impossible", says Chang Jun Yan, an assistant professor with the military studies programme at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

From BBC Sep. 14, 2026

"Coronary artery calcium scans are becoming more widely available and less expensive," said study senior author Dr. Nilay Shah, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

From Science Daily Sep. 12, 2026

Data-center development “appears to have little measurable impact” on local housing prices, according to a February research paper by Alex Priest, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Rochester.

From MarketWatch Sep. 4, 2026

Changliu Liu, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, has a YouTube failbot compilation she likes to show students.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 3, 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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