graduate
a person who has received a degree or diploma on completing a course of study, as in a university, college, or school.
a student who holds the bachelor's or the first professional degree and is studying for an advanced degree.
a graduated cylinder, used for measuring.
of, relating to, or involved in academic study beyond the first or bachelor's degree: graduate courses in business; a graduate student.
having an academic degree or diploma: a graduate engineer.
to receive a degree or diploma on completing a course of study (often followed by from): She graduated from college in 1985.
to pass by degrees; change gradually.
to confer a degree upon, or to grant a diploma to, at the close of a course of study, as in a university, college, or school: Cornell graduated eighty students with honors.
Informal. to receive a degree or diploma from: She graduated college in 1950.
to arrange in grades or gradations; establish gradation in.
to divide into or mark with degrees or other divisions, as the scale of a thermometer.
Origin of graduate
1usage note For graduate
Even though it is condemned by some as nonstandard, the use of graduate as a transitive verb meaning “to receive a degree or diploma from” is increasing in frequency in both speech and writing: The twins graduated high school in 1974.
Other words from graduate
- grad·u·a·tor, noun
- non·grad·u·ate, noun
- su·per·grad·u·ate, noun
- un·grad·u·at·ing, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use graduate in a sentence
They want to sail around the world after graduating from college.
These College Students Have a Dream to Sail the World | Outside Editors | November 20, 2020 | Outside OnlineStill, only 57% of students learning English at York graduate within four years, according to state records from the 2018-2019 school year.
Inside the Lives of Immigrant Teens Working Dangerous Night Shifts in Suburban Factories | by Melissa Sanchez | November 19, 2020 | ProPublicaClark recruited Ethiopia’s Berhane Asfaw to Berkeley’s graduate anthropology program, the first of a series of Ethiopians the Ardi team trained as paleoanthropologists.
Ardi and her discoverers shake up hominid evolution in ‘Fossil Men’ | Bruce Bower | November 18, 2020 | Science NewsKra, 54, has grown from an uncertain graduate student into a mathematician at the top of her field.
Mark Van Raamsdonk remembers the beginning of the first class he took on quantum field theory as a Princeton University graduate student.
He came to Atari seven years ago, immediately after graduating from Berkeley.
After graduating high school, he attending the University of Virginia, double-majoring in economics and foreign relations.
Ben McKenzie’s Journey From Reluctant Teen Idol on ‘The O.C.’ to Sheriff of ‘Gotham’ | Marlow Stern | November 4, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAll these talented chefs are graduating from these old-guard kitchens and branching out and the market is saturated.
She was a talented singer, and after graduating high school in Aurora she enrolled at Denver Community College to study music.
Indiana Serial Killer’s Confession Was Just the Start | Michael Daly | October 21, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAfter graduating from college, I lived for 15 years without even owning a television set.
Five Lessons the Faltering Music Industry Could Learn From TV | Ted Gioia | August 3, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTSo she remained faithful to her home duties, but each year kept up with the graduating class of a local preparatory school.
Ruth Fielding At College | Alice B. EmersonAfter graduating at Oxford he was called to the bar in 1817, and for some years was engaged in law-reporting.
There were fifty-eight of us in my graduating class—that's 1940—and exactly thirty turned up for the tenth reunion.
A Feast of Demons | William MorrisonAfter graduating it is advisable to find a position as an assistant.
The Canadian Girl at Work | Marjory MacMurchyGraduating from college, looking for work, there is usually just one kind of work toward which they are mentally alert.
The Women of Tomorrow | William Hard
British Dictionary definitions for graduate
a person who has been awarded a first degree from a university or college
(as modifier): a graduate profession
US and Canadian a student who has completed a course of studies at a high school and received a diploma
US a container, such as a flask, marked to indicate its capacity
to receive or cause to receive a degree or diploma
(tr) mainly US and Canadian to confer a degree, diploma, etc upon
(tr) to mark (a thermometer, flask, etc) with units of measurement; calibrate
(tr) to arrange or sort into groups according to type, quality, etc
(intr often foll by to) to change by degrees (from something to something else)
Origin of graduate
1Derived forms of graduate
- graduator, noun
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
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