Degree

How to spell degree

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce degree

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does degree mean?

1. nounAn academic qualification awarded by a university or college on completion of a course.
2. nounA unit for measuring temperature or the size of an angle.
3. nounThe amount, level, or extent to which something happens or is present.

Degree in a sentence

• She earned a degree in chemistry after four years of study.

• The oven temperature climbed by one degree every minute.

• The project succeeded to a remarkable degree.

• Many of the new graduates hold a master's degree.

• She turned the steering wheel by a single degree to correct the line.

• She handled the criticism with a high degree of patience.

Where does degree come from?

Language of origin: French

The word arrived in English in the 1200s from Old French degre, meaning 'a step' or 'a rank', which in turn descended from an assumed Vulgar Latin form degradus. That word was built from the Latin prefix de-, meaning 'down', joined to gradus, meaning 'a step' or 'a pace', the same root that gives us 'grade', 'gradual', and 'progress'. The literal image is of a single step on a staircase, and from there the sense fanned out to mean a stage in a series, a rank or station in life, and a level of intensity. The academic sense (a qualification awarded by a university) reflects the idea of advancing up a ladder of learning, while the measurement senses (a degree of temperature or of an angle) capture the notion of a fixed step along a graded scale. The silent feel of the doubled 'ee' ending is just the French spelling settling into English, and it pairs neatly with the single 'e' that opens the word.

How the word is built

• de- (down)
• -gree (from Latin gradus: step, grade)