diploma
Americannoun
-
diplomas,
plural
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diplomata
plural
-
a document given by an educational institution conferring a degree on a person or certifying that the person has satisfactorily completed a course of study.
-
a document conferring some honor, privilege, or power.
-
a public or official document, especially one of historical interest.
a diploma from Carolingian times.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a document conferring a qualification, recording success in examinations or successful completion of a course of study
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an official document that confers an honour or privilege
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of diploma
1635–45; < Latin diplōma a letter of recommendation, an official document < Greek díplōma a letter folded double, equivalent to diplō-, variant stem of diploûn to double (derivative of diplóos; see diplo-) + -ma suffix of result
Explanation
A diploma is a document people receive when they graduate from a school or program. It is a symbol of academic success. You often see framed diplomas displayed in a doctor's office. Are you working toward a diploma? Then you must be in school. People receive high school and college diplomas, which they usually receive during a graduation ceremony. You could also get a diploma for a shorter series of classes in something like pottery, skydiving, or marksmanship. Even a dog could get a diploma for passing obedience school. Any time someone gets a diploma, you can be sure they finished a course or program of learning.
Vocabulary lists containing diploma
A Graduation Lexicon
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Education and Academics, List 1
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocabulary for June 3–June 9, 2023
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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:
Requiring that graduates of college degree programs earn more than someone with a high-school diploma is a relatively low floor, Matsudaira said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
The Nobel Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for around $1.2 million, to be shared if there is more than one laureate in each discipline.
From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026
Sullivan, who’s already gotten his high school diploma, isn’t expected to stay in the MLS.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
Parmar and Sharma met on a computer science diploma course and later started NeuroX AI, which builds software and AI products and makes Instagram content.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
We even got a diploma with a ribbon around it.
From "The Fourteenth Goldfish" by Jennifer L. Holm
Some go so far as to receive diplomas from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, Rudman added—a level of accreditation that many full-time wine professionals don’t ever attain.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
Hanlon warned the barrier to entry is much higher than other construction trades such as bricklaying or carpentry, which are available as college diplomas.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
As the class of 2026 looks toward the future after securing their diplomas, some are preparing to move from their dorm room back to their childhood bedroom.
From MarketWatch ● May 21, 2026
After all, if a college degree is no longer a sure path to a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, high school diplomas are worth even less.
From Salon ● May 4, 2026
“Are you really? Well, you know what they say—God will not look you over for medals or diplomas, but for scars. That’s Elbert Hubbard, an American essayist, if you’re interested.”
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
A Rubricken Bock, or collection of municipal diplomata testifies to another branch of his useful activities.
From Bartholomew Sastrow Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster by Bartholomew Sastrow
They have their eyes open, and they know political economy better than our diplomaed professors.
From Sophisms of the Protectionists by Horace White
The next day a man who professed bone-setting and doctoring, albeit not diplomaed, asked me to go with him and act as interpreter to a German patient who had a broken thigh.
From Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland
He could drive really well, too; as for belief in himself, after six months' apprenticeship in a garage he was prepared to vivisect a six-cylinder engine with the confidence of a diplomaed bachelor of engineering.
From Three Elephant Power and Other Stories by A. B. (Andrew Barton) Paterson
Ministers, who constitute the third item of the diplomaed triad, are not free from the universal mania, and as writing sermons is not coining money, the plantations are like the vocative in Latin pronouns.
From The South-West By a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 2 by Jonathon Holt Ingraham
Miss Elbury was of the older generation of governesses, motherly, kind, but rather prim and precise, the accomplished element being supplied with diplomaed foreigners, who, since Lady Phyllis's failure in health, had been dispensed with.
From Beechcroft at Rockstone by Charlotte Mary Yonge
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.
