undergraduate
Americannoun
-
undergraduates
plural
adjective
-
having the standing of an undergraduate.
-
of, for, pertaining to, or characteristic of undergraduates.
noun
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Nouns
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.
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About 26% of USC students are international, with 15% of the undergraduate population coming from other nations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Urschel’s paper tackles a conjecture that has existed since the 1990s and that he first became interested in while an undergraduate.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
The research was led by BYU School of Family Life professor Jeremy Yorgason with co-author Ashlyn Hiatt Mildenhall, who first became involved in the project as an undergraduate researcher at BYU.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
The University of Worcester undergraduate, of Yeadon Close in Redditch, Worcestershire, had been expected to argue he acted in self-defence and had set up the room to film a Dexter tribute for TikTok.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
In about twelve hours, in an undergraduate dorm room in New York, he had poured the foundation for the Human Genome Project.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Signers would cap international undergraduates at 15%, require the SAT or ACT and freeze tuition for five years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Credit-card use among undergraduates jumped to 54% in 2025, from 43% in 2018, according to the nonprofit higher-education research firm Trellis Strategies.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
Martina Serrano Alvarez and Reed Noyd also participated while they were undergraduates, and Colin Miller contributed as a doctoral student.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2026
PhD students would also be able to bring their families as they were in different life circumstances to undergraduates, Burke said.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Moira told me once that it used to be where the undergraduates ate, in the earlier days of the university.
From "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
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