Diploma

How to spell diploma

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce diploma

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does diploma mean?

1. nounAn official certificate confirming that a person has successfully completed a course of study or training.

Diploma in a sentence

• She framed her nursing diploma and hung it above the desk.

• The college mailed his diploma several weeks after graduation.

Where does diploma come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek diploma, which literally meant 'a paper folded double'. It was built on the verb diploun, 'to fold double', from the adjective diploos, meaning 'twofold' or 'double'. In the ancient world such a folded document was an official letter of recommendation or a licence granting privileges, and the folding was how it was authenticated. Latin took the word over directly to mean an official document or charter, and English borrowed it in the seventeenth century, at first for any state paper or licence. By the eighteenth century it had narrowed to its modern academic sense: the certificate confirming that someone has completed a course of study. The same diploos root that means 'double' also survives in 'diplomat', because diplomats were originally the people who carried and dealt with these folded official papers.

How the word is built

• diplo- (from Greek diploos: double, folded)
• -ma (noun suffix: the result of an action)