dropout

or drop-out

[drop-out]

See more synonyms for dropout on Thesaurus.com

noun

an act or instance of dropping out.
a student who withdraws before completing a course of instruction.
a student who withdraws from high school after having reached the legal age to do so.

a person who withdraws from established society, especially to pursue an alternate lifestyle.
a person who withdraws from a competition, job, task, etc.: the first dropout from the presidential race.
Rugby. a drop kick made by a defending team from within its own 25-yard (23-meter) line as a result of a touchdown or of the ball's having touched or gone outside of a touch-in-goal line or the dead-ball line.
Also called highlight halftone. a halftone negative or plate in which dots have been eliminated from highlights by continued etching, burning in, opaquing, or the like.
Also called dropout error. the loss of portions of the information on a recorded magnetic tape due to contamination of the magnetic medium or poor contact with the tape heads.

Origin of dropout

1925–30, Americanism; noun use of verb phrase drop out

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for dropout

quitter, truant, hippie, nonconformist, failure

Examples from the Web for dropout

Contemporary Examples of dropout

He calls Kline the champion of for-profit colleges, which have a dropout rate “worse than celebrity rehab.”
Bill Maher Wants You to Meet—and Beat—Republican John Kline
Eleanor Clift
September 16, 2014
The dropout rate of Arab students at the Technion, Israel's technology institute, went from 28 percent to 12 percent.
A Dangerous Position
Batya Kallus, Ron Gerlitz
November 23, 2012
He and (dropout) Michele Bachmann added up to about 14 percent in these polls.
Michael Tomasky: South Carolina Showdown for Romney and Santorum
Michael Tomasky
January 4, 2012
By replacing each team with a famous alumnus (or dropout), filling out a bracket has never been easier.
March Madness: Which Celebrity Alumni Will Win?
Michael Solomon
March 17, 2011
It sounds drastic,” says Powell, “but literally the future of our nation is at stake if we do not correct the dropout rate.
America's Dropout Crisis
The Daily Beast
October 28, 2009

Historical Examples of dropout

The economy absorbed the majority of the dropout population.
The Civilization of Illiteracy
Mihai Nadin

British Dictionary definitions for dropout

dropout

noun

a student who fails to complete a school or college course
a person who rejects conventional society
drop-out rugby a drop kick taken by the defending team to restart play, as after a touchdown
drop-out electronics a momentary loss of signal in a magnetic recording medium as a result of an imperfection in its magnetic coating

verb drop out (intr, adverb often foll by of)

to abandon or withdraw from (a school, social group, job, etc)

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

Word Origin and History for dropout

"one who 'drops out' of something," 1930, from drop (v.) + out (adv.). As a phrase, drop out "withdraw" is recorded from 1550s.