sophomore
[ sof-uh-mawr, -mohr; sof-mawr, -mohr ]
/ ˈsɒf əˌmɔr, -ˌmoʊr; ˈsɒf mɔr, -moʊr /
noun
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.
adjective
of or relating to a sophomore.
of or being a second effort or second version: Their sophomore album was even better than their first.
RELATED CONTENT
What Does “Sophomore” Mean?Of the four tiers of high school, sophomore is the year that stands out as strange. Freshman, junior, and senior are relatively clear monikers for their associated levels, and it’s funny that in school, the place where you are most expected to know the how and why of everything, second-year students are called by a term whose roots are abstruse. Then there is the problem …
RELATED WORDS
inexperienced, undergraduate, senior, learner, student, scholar, pupil, junior, graduate, freshman, satellite, adherent, tenderfoot, beginner, novice, neophyte, brain, follower, bookworm, attendant
Nearby words
- sophistries,
- sophistry,
- sophists,
- sophoclean,
- sophocles,
- sophomoric,
- sophonias,
- sophronia,
- sophrosyne,
- sophy
Origin of sophomore
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
sophomore
/ (ˈsɒfəˌmɔː) /
noun
mainly US and Canadian a second-year student at a secondary (high) school or college
adjective
(of a book, recording, etc by an artist) secondher sophomore album
Word Origin for sophomore
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
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
sophomore
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).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper