Graduate

How to spell graduate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce graduate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does graduate mean?

1. nounA person who has completed a degree or course of study.
2. verbTo successfully complete a degree or course of study, or to move up to a more advanced stage.

Graduate in a sentence

• noun

  The firm prefers to hire a recent graduate with strong writing skills.

• verb

  She hopes to graduate from medical school next summer.

• noun

  As a law graduate, she spent her first year clerking at the court.

• verb

  Many trainees graduate to senior roles after two years of practice.

Where does graduate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin gradus, meaning a 'step' or a 'stage', the same root that gives us 'grade', 'gradual', and 'gradient'. Medieval Latin formed the verb graduare, meaning to admit someone to a degree, since taking a university degree was pictured as climbing a step upward in rank. English adopted it in the late 1400s, first in the academic sense of receiving or conferring a degree, and the noun for the degree-holder followed soon after. The idea of a 'step' also survives in the technical sense of 'graduate', to mark something off in measured stages, as on a thermometer or a measuring jug. Knowing that gradus means a step is a handy reminder that the middle of the word is spelled with the same -du- you find in 'gradual', not a -ju-.

How the word is built

• grad- (from gradus: step, degree)
• -ate (verb/noun suffix)