Word
graduate
Phoneticsgrad·u·ate
/ˈɡɹædʒəˌweɪt/
Definitions
01person with a degree
n. someone who has successfully finished their studies at a university or college.
n. an individual who has been awarded an academic degree or diploma upon completion of a course of study.
“The company is looking to hire a recent graduate for the marketing role.”
“As a recent graduate of the law school, she found herself well-prepared for the rigorous demands of her first clerkship.”
Synonyms
Antonyms
02measuring container
n. a container, like a glass tube or cup, that has lines on it for measuring liquids.
n. a vessel, such as a cylinder or beaker, marked with a scale for measuring contents.
“Pour exactly fifty millilitres of water into the glass graduate.”
“The chemist carefully poured the reagent into a glass graduate to ensure the volume matched the experimental protocol exactly.”
Technical
Synonyms
03to finish school
v. to complete your education at a school, college, or university.
v. to receive an academic degree or diploma; used intransitively with 'from' or transitively in some dialects.
“He plans to graduate from high school in June and then travel for a year.”
“After he graduated from the university with honours, several prestigious firms offered him immediate employment.”
Usage
Usually takes the preposition 'from' before the name of the institution.
Pitfall
She graduated university last year.
She graduated from university last year.
In standard English, you must use the preposition 'from' after graduate when naming the institution.
Antonyms
04to mark with a scale
v. to mark an object with a series of lines or steps for measuring something.
v. to divide into degrees or intervals; to mark a scale on an instrument.
“The ruler is graduated in both centimetres and inches.”
“The technician had to graduate the new thermometer manually to ensure the markings aligned with the mercury's expansion rates.”
Technical
05relating to advanced study
adj. describing a student who is studying for a second, higher degree after their first one.
adj. relating to or being a course of study taken after receiving a bachelor's degree.
“She is applying for a graduate program in history at several universities.”
“The university offers several graduate fellowships for students pursuing doctoral research in the field of molecular biology.”
American English
Teaching tip
In British English, 'postgraduate' is the standard term for this level of study.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English graduat(e) (“(noun) a graduate of a university; (adjective) graduate, having graduated”, also used as the past participle of graduaten (“to graduate”)), borrowed from Medieval Latin graduātus (“graduated, graduate”), perfect passive participle of graduō (“to graduate”) (see -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from gradus (“step”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). The noun is originally derived within Latin from the adjective via substantivization, see -ate (noun-forming suffix). Sense 10 of the verb, relating to Japanese entertainment, is a semantic loan from Japanese 卒業 (sotsugyō).
From Middle English graduaten (“to graduate”), from (adjective) graduat(e) (also used as the past participle of graduaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix), from Medieval Latin graduātus, see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Collocations
Idioms
Christmas graduate — A freshman who drops out of college at the end of the first semester.
The word in film
Poster: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Graduate · 1967 · Comedy
- Directed by:
- Mike Nichols
- Starring:
- Anne Bancroft, Richard Dreyfuss, Katharine Ross
Mike Nichols directed this famous 1960s comedy about a young man who has just finished his university studies. The story follows him as he struggles to decide what to do with his life now that he is no longer a student.
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englishreference.com/q/graduate