graduate
Americannoun
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graduates
plural
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a person who has received a degree or diploma on completing a course of study, as in a university, college, or school.
-
a student who holds the bachelor's or the first professional degree and is studying for an advanced degree.
-
a graduated cylinder, used for measuring.
adjective
-
of, relating to, or involved in academic study beyond the first or bachelor's degree.
graduate courses in business; a graduate student.
-
having an academic degree or diploma.
a graduate engineer.
verb (used without object)
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graduates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
graduated,
past participle, past
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graduating
present participle
-
to receive a degree or diploma on completing a course of study (often followed byfrom ).
She graduated from college in 1985.
-
to pass by degrees; change gradually.
verb (used with object)
-
graduates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
graduated,
past participle, past
-
graduating
present participle
-
to confer a degree upon, or to grant a diploma to, at the close of a course of study, as in a university, college, or school.
Cornell graduated eighty students with honors.
-
Informal. to receive a degree or diploma from.
She graduated college in 1950.
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to arrange in grades or gradations; establish gradation in.
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to divide into or mark with degrees or other divisions, as the scale of a thermometer.
noun
-
-
a person who has been awarded a first degree from a university or college
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( as modifier )
a graduate profession
-
-
a student who has completed a course of studies at a high school and received a diploma
-
a container, such as a flask, marked to indicate its capacity
verb
-
to receive or cause to receive a degree or diploma
-
(tr) to confer a degree, diploma, etc upon
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(tr) to mark (a thermometer, flask, etc) with units of measurement; calibrate
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(tr) to arrange or sort into groups according to type, quality, etc
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to change by degrees (from something to something else)
Usage
In the sense “to receive a degree or diploma” graduate followed by from is the most common construction today: Her daughter graduated from Yale in 1981. The passive form was graduated from, formerly insisted upon as the only correct pattern, has decreased in use and occurs infrequently today: My husband was graduated from West Point last year. Even though it is condemned by some as nonstandard, the use of graduate as a transitive verb meaning “to receive a degree or diploma from” is increasing in frequency in both speech and writing: The twins graduated high school in 1974.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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graduatesimple
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graduatessimple
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have graduatedperfect
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has graduatedperfect
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am graduatingprogressive
-
are graduatingprogressive
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is graduatingprogressive
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have been graduatingperfect progressive
-
has been graduatingperfect progressive
Past
-
graduatedsimple
-
had graduatedperfect
-
was graduatingprogressive
-
were graduatingprogressive
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had been graduatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of graduate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Medieval Latin graduātus (past participle of graduāre ), equivalent to grad ( us ) grade, step + -u- thematic vowel + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To graduate means to successfully complete your schooling, to become "a graduate." When you graduate from high school, you become a high school graduate and congratulations are in order. A graduate is someone who has received a degree from a school. As a verb graduate refers to the act of receiving this degree “I plan to graduate from college in the spring,” or the act of giving a degree “I want to graduate all of my students.” In a scientific sense, graduate can mean to calibrate for fine adjustments. To make a thermometer, you have to graduate it by degrees so it displays a range of temperatures.
Vocabulary lists containing graduate
A Graduation Lexicon
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Education and Academics, List 1
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for May 22–May 28, 2021
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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:
Breed was raised in Pleasanton and is a UC Berkeley graduate, where she was a member of of the school’s decorated swim team.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2026
Fresh out of graduate school, I wanted desperately to have people over, but I was working with a very limited budget.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2026
She completed the research as part of her Schreyer's Honors College thesis, working alongside graduate researchers, including Kim, to analyze satellite measurements and develop her scientific skills.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 19, 2026
In Crete, Manchester City's Laura Blindkilde Brown, 23, showed glimpses of her ball-playing ability, while in the second leg 20-year-old Chelsea academy graduate Potter impressed in midfield.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
My plan was, as I taught, also to study, to take graduate courses in English literature and possibly writing.
From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien
But, he added, colleges are traditionally structured to boost economic returns for their students as compared with high-school graduates.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026
He started looking for a job in earnest at a time when companies pulled back on hiring graduates after a pandemic hiring spree.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
Many young people don’t want to toil in factories, which don’t provide the kind of prestige or work environments college graduates seek—and are rapidly replacing workers with robots.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
It’s in the second half of the novel, after Batter graduates from college, that the plot gains momentum and begins to soar.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
Exactly zero percent of those 1940 college graduates became engineers.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Sargent stayed the course and graduated with a Neumont computer-science degree in 2026.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026
That leaves out a few key details: The Salt Lake City native has applied to thousands of jobs since he graduated from Princeton in 2024 with his doctorate in chemical engineering.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026
THE SON of two physicians, Weis graduated summa cum laude from Rice University and enrolled at Princeton for his Ph.D. in 2018.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
After going 7-3 and breaking the school’s single-season touchdown passing record Croick once held, all of the team’s star players graduated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
He graduated from this part of the course in 1591, second out of a class of fourteen, and moved on to his theological studies described by his tutors as an exceptional student.
From "The Scientists" by John Gribbin
By Wednesday, reporting surfaced that Zacharia sat for the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, but did not pass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
After graduating and entering politics, he joined the Socialist Party, where he stayed for more than three decades serving in various posts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026
Zacharia took the bar exam in California after graduating from law school but did not pass, according to the Wall Street Journal.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
"We are glad that Rooppur is known to the world, and my friends and I hope that we will work at the plant after graduating from engineering schools," he added.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
“He was valedictorian of his graduating class,” I said.
From "It All Comes Down to This" by Karen English
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