Showing results for "dean"

• a variation of dene.

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• dean
  dean

  noun
• Dean
  Dean

  noun

  James (Byron), 1931–55, U.S. actor.

dean

¹ American  

[deen] / din /

noun

deans plural

1. Education.

   1. the head of a faculty, school, or administrative division in a university or college.

      the dean of admissions.

   2. an official in an American college or secondary school having charge of student personnel services, such as counseling or discipline.

      the dean of men.

   3. the official in charge of undergraduate students at an English university.

2. Ecclesiastical.

   1. the head of the chapter of a cathedral or a collegiate church.

   2. Also called vicar forane.  a priest in the Roman Catholic Church appointed by a bishop to take care of the affairs of a division of a diocese.

3. the senior member, in length of service, of any group, organization, profession, etc..

   the dean of lexicographers.

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Dean ² American  

[deen] / din /

noun

1. James (Byron), 1931–55, U.S. actor.

2. Jay Hanna Dizzy, 1911–74, U.S. baseball pitcher.

3. a male given name: from the Old English family name meaning “valley.”

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dean ¹ British  

/ diːn /

noun

1. the chief administrative official of a college or university faculty

2. (at Oxford and Cambridge universities) a college fellow with responsibility for undergraduate discipline

3. Church of England the head of a chapter of canons and administrator of a cathedral or collegiate church

4. RC Church the cardinal bishop senior by consecration and head of the college of cardinals See also rural dean

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Dean ² British  

/ diːn /

noun

1. Christopher. See Torvill and Dean

2. James ( Byron ). 1931–55, US film actor, who became a cult figure; his films include East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause (both 1955). He died in a car crash

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Dean ³ British  

/ diːn /

noun

1. a forest in W England, in Gloucestershire, between the Rivers Severn and Wye: formerly a royal hunting ground

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• deanship
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• deans
  plural

Etymology

Origin of dean

1300–50; Middle English deen < Anglo-French deen, dean, Old French deien < Late Latin decānus chief of ten, equivalent to Latin dec ( em ) ten + -ānus -an

Explanation

A dean is the head of a specific area of a college, university, or private school. When you're thinking about studying in Madagascar for a semester, you might make an appointment to talk to the study abroad dean. Individual colleges within a larger university system often have separate deans, like the dean of the medical school and the dean of arts and sciences. Within the college, there might also be a dean for each separate year, like the sophomore class dean, and deans for different offices or departments. Dean comes from the Latin decanus, first "commander of ten soldiers," and then "head of ten monks in a monastery," from the Greek word for "ten," deka.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dean Dean deans

Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and the former executive editor of the Hollywood Reporter, sees Tilly occupying an uncomfortable middle ground.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

UC Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky filed a response for the Hernandez family.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026

“You don’t need a model that knows quantum gravity,” said Vishal Misra, the vice dean of computing and AI at Columbia University’s engineering school.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

And much of the burden fell on Meenakshi Parikh, the dean, who had to keep the medical college functioning even as it grappled with overwhelming grief.

From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026

“If their very livelihood depends on it, what do you think they’re going to do?” says Mariale Hardiman, a longtime principal and now an assistant dean for interdisciplinary studies at Johns Hopkins University.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove

BBC Radio 1 presenters Dean McCullough, Rickie Haywood-Williams and Melvin Odoom are set to leave the station as part of a major schedule shake-up.

From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026

What separates Dean from the U.K. pop-soul tradition she emerged from, though, is the simple fact that she has hits.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026

Dean: I would love to be so confident, but I'm struggling.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

From musty star maps to ratty psychics, the movie so adores Los Angeles that Thomas Lennon’s hair stylist character is a riff on local billboard king Chaz Dean.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

“I didn't do either of those things, Dean Nabokov.”

From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton

This forces department chairs, deans, provosts and research vice presidents to own the veracity of every proposed publication.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026

As part of the role, monarchs are responsible for approving the appointment of archbishops, bishops and deans on the recommendation of the prime minister.

From BBC ● Mar. 22, 2026

But the parade of horribles recounted by Mr. Shapiro are at once comic and terrifying: deans harassing speakers, law students defaming anyone holding divergent views, faculty obsessed with idiotic academic theories.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025

“Provisional licensure would allow candidates with offers of employment contingent on bar passage to retain them,” the deans wrote.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2025

Twelve o’clock: I resumed my studies in the attic, reading about deans, priests, ministers, popes and...whew, it was one o’clock!

From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

Related Words

• administrator
• legislator
• principal
• professor
• senior