dissertation
Americannoun
-
dissertations
plural
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a written essay, treatise, or thesis, especially one written by a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
-
any formal discourse in speech or writing.
noun
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a written thesis, often based on original research, usually required for a higher degree
-
a formal discourse
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dissertation
First recorded in 1605–15; from Latin dissertātiōn-, stem of dissertātiō, equivalent to dissert + -ation
Explanation
A dissertation is a long piece of writing that uses research to bring to light an original idea. Don't go to grad school unless you're prepared to write, say, a 300-page dissertation on some topic. In everyday speech, we sometimes accuse people of delivering dissertations when they overload us with dull information. If you're annoyed with a long memo from your office manager about keeping the kitchen clean, you could mutter to a coworker, “How’d you like that dissertation Felix posted about rinsing out our mugs?”
Vocabulary lists containing dissertation
100 SAT Words Beginning with "D"
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The Kite Runner
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The Field Guide to the North American Teenager
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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:
On July 21, 2026, Nathan Cofnas, an American philosopher working at Ghent University in Belgium, wrote a Substack post detailing how he submitted Arday’s 2015 dissertation to Copyleaks, a plagiarism detection platform.
From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026
Cofnas reproduced several tracts of Arday's PhD dissertation which he said the software had found to be copied verbatim or lightly rephrased from prior academic works by other authors.
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
In 2024, Kobie Alexander Smith wrote his dissertation about this kind of fundraising by hospitals as part of his Degree of Doctor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
His dissertation, according to a Barron’s article in 2013, included a section on soaring house prices and their impact on consumer spending.
From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026
I grew to hate the growing pages of my dissertation on genre and Renaissance literature.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
A 22-year-old student from Cambridgeshire said she and other final-year students had been left with "zero information" about jobs, adding pressure during exams and as they prepare dissertations.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2026
Since its introduction, fifteen dissertations and final theses at Freie Universität have focused on the topic, along with seven additional dissertations completed by researchers in other countries.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 7, 2026
After studying neuroscience and writing two dissertations, she was off to Stanford for a law degree and math Ph.D.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
In fact, we first sketched out our plan to link cultural values and microbiology while writing our Ph.D. dissertations at our local deli in St. Louis, Missouri.
From Salon ● Apr. 17, 2024
Baba would enlighten me with his politics during those walks with long-winded dissertations.
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
