graduate
graduate (grăjʹ-āt) verb
graduated, graduating, graduates
verb, intransitive
1. To be granted an academic degree or diploma: Two thirds of the entering freshmen stayed to graduate.
2. a. To change gradually or by degrees. b. To advance to a new level of skill, achievement, or activity: After a summer of diving instruction, they had all graduated to back flips.
verb, transitive
1. a. To grant an academic degree or diploma to: The teachers hope to graduate her this spring. b. Usage Problem. To receive an academic degree from.
2. To arrange or divide into categories, steps, or grades.
3. To divide into marked intervals, especially for use in measurement.
noun
(-ĭt)
1. One who has received an academic degree or diploma.
2. A graduated container, such as a cylinder or beaker.
adjective
(-ĭt)
1. Possessing an academic degree or diploma.
2. Of, intended for, or relating to studies beyond a bachelor's degree: graduate courses.
[Middle English graduaten, to confer a degree, from Medieval Latin graduārī, graduāt-, to take a degree, from Latin gradus, step. See grade.]
gradʹuator noun
Usage Note: The verb graduate has denoted the action of conferring an academic degree or diploma since at least 1421, as in She was graduated from Yale in 1980. This earlier pattern of use is still defensible, if slightly old-fashioned, and is acceptable to 78 percent of the Usage Panel. In general usage, however, it has largely yielded to the much more recent active pattern (first attested in 1807): She graduated from Yale in 1980. This pattern, which no longer bears any taint of incorrectness, is acceptable to 89 percent of the Panel. It has the advantage of ascribing the accomplishment to the student, rather than to the institution, as is usually appropriate in discussions of individual cases. When the institution's responsibility is emphasized, however, the older pattern may still be recommended. A sentence such as The university graduated more computer science majors in 1987 than in the entire previous decade stresses the university's accomplishment, say, of its computer science program. On the other hand, the sentence More computer science majors graduated in 1987 than in the entire previous decade implies that the class of 1987 was in some way a remarkable group. The transitive use of graduate, as in She graduated Yale in 1980, was unacceptable to 77 percent of the Usage Panel.