classmate
Americannoun
-
classmates
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of classmate
Explanation
Your classmate is someone who goes to school with you. It's hard to believe when you first start college that some of your classmates will become your very best friends. Your school friends are your classmates, and so are the fellow students you barely know at all. In a small class, you get to know most of your classmates fairly well, while in a large lecture even your teacher might not know all your classmates' names. The word dates from the 18th century, a combination of class, from the Latin classis, "class or division," and mate, "fellow or comrade."
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:
A college classmate died after stopping to help a pregnant woman down 72 flights of stairs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Another woman said her 12-year-old daughter was a classmate of the dead girl.
From Barron's ● Aug. 9, 2026
And though the suit doesn’t name the classmate, her name has now leaked via court documents, furthering an already pronounced imbalance of power.
From Salon ● Jun. 25, 2026
They usually don’t teach a class on what to do when a classmate can’t get a word out, or teach the teacher to wait.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 22, 2026
The one classmate who protested her presence employed silence rather than epithet as a weapon.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
In Shijiazhuang, an industrial city of seven million northeast of Dazhai, 20-year-old Wang Zhihao and his classmates posed with a giant Mao statue opposite the municipal government.
From Barron's ● Sep. 6, 2026
But even that outdoor time was sometimes withheld when her classmates “behaved poorly”—a common disciplinary tactic that the national guidance recommends against.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2026
She has a tight group of women friends, some of whom are also trial lawyers, and many of whom are former Princeton classmates.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
What especially stayed with my classmates and me was, well, us.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
To classmates, he seemed obsessed with absorbing information and new ideas.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
