Definition
nounA person who is recognized by a university as having completed the requirements of a degree studied at the institution.
nounA person who is recognized by a high school as having completed the requirements of a course of study at the school.
Sentence Examples
When did you graduate from Oxford?
When did you graduate from high school?
My sister expects to graduate from college next year.
Word Origin & History
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).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"After graduating from Princeton University, he earned a law degree in Canada, then worked as an environmental lawyer in Israel before settling on the south side of Youngstown."
— 2019 February 19, Jeremy Pelzer, “Youngstown School Board member Dario Hunter seeks Green Party presidential nomination”, in cleveland.com:
"As the species graduate into each other, both in form and in habits, from the grass-eating Geese to the fish-eating Harelds, it is difficult, […] to divide this large group into sections."
— 1852, William Macgillivray, A history of British birds, indigenous and migratory, page 573:
"Yadav, born Bharat Kalicharan, was a petty thief who had graduated to bigger crimes, terrorising Kasturba Nagar, on the edge of the city of Nagpur, in Maharashtra, from the 1990s until his death."
— 2022 November 7, Puja Bhattacharjee, “What drove 200 women to stab a gangster to death? Netflix series revisits crime that shocked India”, in the Guardian:
"Dyers, who advance and graduate their colours with salts."
— 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC: