sophomore
[sof-uh-mawr, -mohr; sof-mawr, -mohr]
- a student in the second year of high school or college.
- a person or group in the second year of any endeavor: He's a sophomore on Wall Street.
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- of or relating to a sophomore.
- of or being a second effort or second version: Their sophomore album was even better than their first.
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Origin of sophomore
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
sophomore
- mainly US and Canadian a second-year student at a secondary (high) school or college
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- (of a book, recording, etc by an artist) secondher sophomore album
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Word Origin
C17: perhaps from earlier sophumer, from sophum, variant of sophism + -er 1
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for sophomore
n.
1680s, "student in the second year of university study," literally "arguer," altered from sophumer (1650s, from sophume, archaic variant form of sophism), probably by influence of folk etymology derivation from Greek sophos "wise" + moros "foolish, dull." The original reference might be to the dialectic exercises that formed a large part of education in the middle years. At Oxford and Cambridge, a sophister (from sophist with spurious -er as in philosopher) was a second- or third-year student (what Americans would call a "junior" might be a senior sophister).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper