Graduated

How to spell graduated

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce graduated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does graduated mean?

1. verbSuccessfully completed a course of study and received an academic degree or qualification.
2. adjectiveMarked with a series of lines or units to show measurement.
3. adjectiveArranged or increasing in gradual, regular steps or stages.

Graduated in a sentence

• verb

  She graduated from law school after three demanding years.

• adjective

  The chemist measured the solution in a graduated cylinder.

• adjective

  The company introduced a graduated pay scale based on experience.

• verb

  He graduated with honours and started work the following autumn.

• adjective

  A graduated measuring jug made the recipe easy to follow.

• adjective

  The new tax uses a graduated rate that rises with income.

Where does graduated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin gradus, which literally meant 'a step' or 'a pace', and by extension a degree or stage on a scale. Medieval Latin formed the verb graduare, meaning 'to admit to a degree', because completing a university course meant advancing one step in academic rank. English took up 'graduate' in the early 1400s, first in this academic sense of conferring or receiving a degree. From the same notion of marked steps came the later sense of dividing something into measured intervals, as on a thermometer or a measuring jar. The very same gradus root sits behind everyday relatives such as 'gradual', 'grade', and 'degree', and remembering that shared 'step' idea helps fix the single 'd' and the -ate spelling in graduated.

How the word is built

• grad (from gradus: step, degree)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ed (past tense/participle)