dropout

American  

[drop-out] / ˈdrɒpˌaʊt /

Or drop-out

noun

1. an act or instance of dropping out.

2. a student who withdraws before completing a course of instruction.

3. a student who withdraws from high school after having reached the legal age to do so.

4. a person who withdraws from established society, especially to pursue an alternate lifestyle.

5. a person who withdraws from a competition, job, task, etc..

   the first dropout from the presidential race.

6. 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.

7. Also called highlight halftone.  Printing, Photography. a halftone negative or plate in which dots have been eliminated from highlights by continued etching, burning in, opaquing, or the like.

8. 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.

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dropout British  

/ ˈdrɒpˌaʊt /

noun

1. a student who fails to complete a school or college course

2. a person who rejects conventional society

3.  drop-out.  rugby a drop kick taken by the defending team to restart play, as after a touchdown

4.  drop-out.  electronics a momentary loss of signal in a magnetic recording medium as a result of an imperfection in its magnetic coating

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verb

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

Etymology

Origin of dropout

1925–30, noun use of verb phrase drop out

Explanation

A dropout is someone who doesn't finish a project or program, especially school. If you quit high school before you graduate, some people will call you a dropout. Whenever you quit something, or don't follow through on a commitment, you risk being called a dropout, which is a fairly derogatory term for someone who withdraws, quits, or drops out. If you withdraw from college after one semester, you might jokingly describe yourself as a college dropout. The word dates from about 1930.

Example Sentences

A virtual library brings together some of the key books for the singer, who was a college dropout and recounts in a video that reading only became a passion when he was 28.

From Barron's • Jun. 12, 2026

Written and directed by Curry Barker — a 26-year-old film-school dropout who gained popularity on YouTube and TikTok — the movie has grossed $104.8 million in the U.S. and $148 million worldwide.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 1, 2026

This weekend’s No. 2 movie with $26.4 million was “Obsession,” a horror film written, directed and edited by 26-year-old Curry Barker, a film-school dropout who found his first big audience on TikTok and YouTube.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 31, 2026

China's economy was just starting to open up in the late 1980s when a determined high school dropout made his way to Beijing with 600 pairs of shoes.

From BBC • Apr. 26, 2026

Try not to wonder what he’d think of me now, a high-school dropout with a conk on my head and a white girl in my heart.

From "X: A Novel" by Ilyasah Shabazz