undergraduate
Americannoun
adjective
-
having the standing of an undergraduate.
-
of, for, pertaining to, or characteristic of undergraduates.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of undergraduate
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How does undergraduate compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
An undergraduate is a college or university student who's not a graduate student. After high school, you can become an undergraduate. Undergraduates are students of universities and colleges: they've graduated from high school and have been accepted to college, but they haven't graduated yet. If the under in undergraduate seems confusing, that's because there are also graduate students, students who have a college degree but are no longer undergraduates and are pursuing an advanced degree, like a Master's or Ph.D. Lots of people say being an undergraduate was one of the best times of their lives: it's an exciting thing to be.
Vocabulary lists containing undergraduate
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.
Biology Ph.D. student Tim Curtis Jr. participated in the work in Currie's lab, along with undergraduate Elena Singer-Freeman, a Goldwater Scholar and 2025 Wake Forest graduate in biochemistry and molecular biology.
From Science Daily • May 9, 2026
“The Dodgers had committed to paying and whatever it was, it was a lot more collectively — my undergraduate MA and PhD — than I had gotten in the bonus.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 4, 2026
"Mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth," according to his profile, which noted that he had an undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology.
From Barron's • Apr. 26, 2026
The best new legal accreditors would authorize undergraduate colleges to award law degrees—not just graduate-level law schools.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 20, 2026
Around that same time, the Arkansas Board of Education surprised us all by saying that seven state junior colleges would now be open to our undergraduate students.
From "March Forward, Girl" by Melba Pattillo Beals
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.
