noun
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a black tasselled academic cap with a flat square top covered with cloth
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Also called: hawk. a small square board with a handle on the underside for carrying mortar
Etymology
Origin of mortarboard
Vocabulary lists containing mortarboard
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.
Trading your mortarboard for a company badge is exciting.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
The actor and comedian wore a ceremonial red and black robe and mortarboard hat for the ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2022
The letter included a 2019 letter from then-Attorney General Mike Hunter that an Indigenous student’s right to wear eagle feathers on their mortarboard is protected under the Oklahoma Religious Freedom Act.
From Seattle Times ● May 19, 2022
He joked with the high school students that many would not have looked great in a mortarboard cap typical of traditional graduations.
From Washington Post ● May 16, 2020
That summer of 1983, I graduated from high school at the age of twenty, by far the oldest senior tossing his mortarboard on the football field that day.
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.
