Meaning of graduate in English

graduate

noun [ C ]

/ˈɡrædʒ.u.ət/ uk

/ˈɡrædʒ.u.ət/

Add to word list Add to word list

A2 US

(informal grad)

a person who has finished their school, college, or university education:

high-school graduates

graduate of She's a recent graduate of Yale.

B2 UK

a person who has a first degree from a university or college:

a Cambridge graduate

Chris is a physics graduate.

See also

postgraduate noun

undergraduate

More examplesFewer examples

We would prefer to fill the post with a recent graduate.
A graduate of law and economics from Moscow State University, he had spent his life in academia.
At present the organization has to rely on young, inexperienced graduates.
Geography graduates are literate and numerate and have very good IT skills.
There are numerous opportunities for young graduates.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Students & pupils

See more results »

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

University & college education

graduate

verb

/ˈɡrædʒ.u.eɪt/ uk

/ˈɡrædʒ.u.eɪt/

graduate verb (QUALIFY)

B2 [ I or T ] US

to complete school, college, or university successfully:

After he graduated high school, he joined the Army.

graduate from She graduated from the University of Kansas with a BA in English literature.

graduate with Tom graduated with honors from San Diego State.

She graduated in the top 10% of her class.

B2 [ I ] UK

to complete a first university degree successfully:

graduate from Lorna graduated from the University of London.

graduate with Tom has just graduated with top honors in psychology.

graduate in He later graduated in medicine and specialized in psychiatry.

More examplesFewer examples

His heart swelled with pride as he stood watching his son graduate.
He graduated with a second-class honours degree in physics.
Greg and Jody met in their freshman year at college and married soon after they graduated.
Both their children graduated with degrees in economics.
She graduates in July.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

University & college education

See more results »

graduate verb (PROGRESS)

[ I ]

to move forward or improve:

graduate from something/doing something to something/doing something She graduated from being a secretary to running her own department.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Making progress and advancing

See more results »

(Definition of graduate from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

graduate | Intermediate English

graduate

noun [ C ]

/ˈɡrædʒ·u·ɪt/

(short form grad, us/ɡræd/)

Add to word list Add to word list

a person who has successfully completed studies at a school or received a degree from a college or university:

a Yale graduate/a graduate of Yale

graduate

verb [ I/T ] us

/ˈɡrædʒ·uˌeɪt/

[ I ] Although he never graduated from high school, he became a successful businessman.

graduate

adjective

/ˈɡrædʒ·u·ɪt/

(short form grad, us/ɡræd/)

relating to or working toward a university degree beyond the one you receive after four years of study:

graduate school/student/studies

(Definition of graduate from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

graduate | Business English

graduate

noun [ C ]

/ˈɡrædʒuət/ us

Add to word list Add to word list

a student who has completed a university or college degree:

a 2010 college graduate

a graduate of sth Li is a graduate of Beijing University.

an Oxford/Harvard/Columbia graduate

a psychology/journalism/engineering graduate

a student who has completed high school:

The boys were graduates of Winthrop High School.

a high school graduate

graduate

verb

/ˈɡrædjueɪt/ us

[ I ]

to complete a degree at a college or university:

The pharmacy college will hold classes for 12 months a year so that its students can graduate in three years .

graduate from sth In India, roughly two million English speakers graduate from university each year.

[ I ] US

to complete high school:

The program continues until the students graduate from high school.

[ T ] US

if a university, college, or school graduates students, it gives them an official document that proves they have completed their education there:

The business community has been frustrated that our city schools were graduating people who were illiterate.

(Definition of graduate from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of graduate

graduate

Let me know how your students do when they graduate.

From NPR

At least 20 percent of the nearly 2,200 program graduates are age 21 or younger.

From Huffington Post

Our graduates perform better than the norm nationally.

From OregonLive.com

What seems to have happened is that for every healthy-weight person who "graduated" into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity.

From Reuters

It was like a very opulent graduate seminar -- rich, but also rigorous.

From Slate Magazine

At public schools, less than a third of students graduate on time.

From TIME

The unemployment rate for college grads now is about 7% while for high school graduates is 24%.

From TIME

He graduated from law school and would like to become a military lawyer.

From Huffington Post

They described him as a 2010 high school graduate and loner who didn't appear to have much of a social life.

From Huffington Post

Of course, an unknown number of mobile students graduate from other districts.

From Huffington Post

For much of the past decade, the unemployment rate for college graduates has remained higher than the total population.

From NPR

He ended up as one of the 10 percent of the starting class to graduate.

From Washington Times

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of graduate?