postdoctoral
Americanadjective
adjective
Etymology
Origin of postdoctoral
1935–40; post- + doctoral ( def. )
Explanation
Research or other work done after getting a PhD is postdoctoral. Your cousin must be pretty happy about the postdoctoral fellowship she got at the University of Hawaii. Surf's up! When you stay in school long enough to earn a doctorate degree (usually called a PhD or Doctor of Philosophy), you can describe the work, writing, and research you do as doctoral. It follows that related work done after that — but generally before getting a full-time academic job — is postdoctoral, since post- means "after." A postdoctoral student, for example, might work for a few years and teach some classes before pursuing a university teaching position.
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.
Harry Brown, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney’s Heat and Health Research Centre, expressed frustration over the universal breaks in an op-ed in the journal Nature.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
A month later, it said it confirmed misconduct, fired a postdoctoral researcher and ousted the dean of the university’s Institute of Translational Medicine.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
Stan Kerstjens, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Anthony Zador's laboratory, explains the challenge in terms of positional information.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026
It was led by former UCR postdoctoral researchers Yu Fang and Yahya Al Naggar.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 23, 2026
Margaret called each member of the Gey lab’s staff, including a postdoctoral student who’d just flown in on a red-eye from Europe.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
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.
