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Synonyms

postgraduate

American  
[pohst-graj-oo-it, -ayt] / poʊstˈgrædʒ u ɪt, -ˌeɪt /

adjective

  1. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or consisting of post-graduates.

    a postgraduate seminar.


noun

  • postgraduates
    plural
  1. a student who is taking advanced work after graduation, as from a high school or college.

postgraduate British  
/ pəʊstˈɡrædjʊɪt /

noun

  1. a student who has obtained a degree from a university, etc, and is pursuing studies for a more advanced qualification

  2. (modifier) of or relating to such a student or to his studies

"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

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of postgraduate

First recorded in 1855–60; post- + graduate


Compare meaning

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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.

See Examples For:

Mills, a postgraduate student in art history, set her alarm for 8 a.m., and logged on early to the museum’s site.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026

Alex Papadopoulos, a postgraduate researcher at the Institute for Gravitational Research, explained that the expanded catalog is also helping scientists tackle one of cosmology's biggest unanswered questions: how fast the Universe is expanding.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 2, 2026

After receiving a postgraduate diploma in marketing at the Australian Graduate School of Management, she held senior positions at Australian telecom companies including Telstra.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026

And the figures were worse for maths, where only 75 trainee postgraduate teachers were recruited towards a target of 250.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

He was haunted by what he did not have—a postgraduate degree, an upper-middle-class life—and so his affected words became his armor.

From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

While there had been a "significant drop in international students" - who are largely postgraduates, and who pay higher fees - Hillman said universities were utilising their resources for UK undergraduates instead.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

UNLV, less than two miles east of the Las Vegas Strip, has an enrollment of about 25,000 undergraduates and 8,000 postgraduates and doctoral candidates.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2023

CAS reduced the unidentified team leader’s funding and suspended him from supervising postgraduates for a year, according to the news report.

From Science Magazine ● May 24, 2023

He told me that many of his clients are postgraduates worried about their money situation, and a large debt balance is “a dark cloud that always follows you.”

From Slate ● Feb. 26, 2023

From the ranks of this wayward class came the old editors and reporters; they were postgraduates from the back room of newspaper offices and they brought to the front room their easy view of life.

From In Our Town by Frederic Rodrigo Gruger

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