# grade

Pronunciation: say "GRAYD" /ɡɹeɪd/

## Noun

1. A stage of primary or secondary schooling, usually covering one year and numbered in sequence. *(Canada, Philippines, US)*
   - Simple: One of the numbered years in school that a child moves through.
   - _She teaches fifth grade at the local elementary school._
   - _Students advance to the next grade at the end of each academic year._
2. A level of quality, rank, or degree on a scale, or the rating that places something at that level.
   - Simple: How good something is or how high it ranks, shown as a level on a scale.
   - _The factory produces steel in several grades of strength._
   - _Only the top grade of wool is used for these coats._
3. A score recording performance on a test or evaluation, expressed as a number, letter, or other symbol. *(Canada, Philippines, US)*
   - Simple: A number or letter that shows how well you did on a test or in a class.
   - _Her final grade in chemistry was a B._
   - _Teachers post grades online within a week of each exam._
6. The slope of a road, railway, or other passage, whether rising or falling.
   - Simple: How much a road, railway, or path slopes up or down.
   - _The highway has a six percent grade over the mountain pass._
   - _Trains need extra power to climb steep grades._
8. The level or elevation of the ground surface at a given point.
   - Simple: The level of the ground at a certain spot.
   - _The basement floor sits ten feet below grade._
   - _Engineers measured the existing grade before construction._
9. A pupil in a particular school grade, called by that grade's number, so that the word names the child and not the school year. *(Canada)*
   - Simple: A student who belongs to a particular school year.
   - _As a grade eight, she was already reading well above her level._
   - _The grade twelves organized a food drive for the whole school._
10. A measure of a tumor's degree of malignancy, expressed on a defined scale.
   - Simple: A number that shows how fast and dangerous a tumor is likely to be.
   - _The biopsy showed a tumor of intermediate grade._
   - _Pathologists assign a grade based on how abnormal the cells look._
13. An expanse of ground that a grader has flattened and leveled.
   - Simple: A flat area of ground made smooth by a leveling machine.
   - _After the bulldozers left, the crew set up the forms for the slab right on the freshly leveled grade._
   - _Before the paving crew arrived, delivery trucks parked on the wide new grade the machines had smoothed the day before._

## Verb

4. To evaluate an academic test, assignment, or a student's overall work, and give it a score. *(Canada, US)*
   - Simple: To give a score to a test or to a student's work.
   - _Professors grade their students on a curve._
   - _He graded the final papers before submitting the marks._
5. To sort or organize items into ranked categories by quality or level.
   - Simple: To sort things into groups by quality or level.
   - _Inspectors grade eggs according to size and quality._
   - _The diamonds were graded by trained gemologists._
7. To flatten, level, or smooth a large surface, typically using a grader.
   - Simple: To make a large area of ground flat and smooth.
   - _Crews grade the dirt road every spring._
   - _The site was graded to ensure proper drainage._
11. To pass gradually and imperceptibly from one grade or level into another.
   - Simple: To slowly change from one type or level into another with no clear dividing line.
   - _Where the two soil types meet, they grade into each other over several meters rather than at a sharp line._
   - _These soil types grade into one another across the valley floor._
12. To apply classifying labels to data, usually by hand rather than through an automatic process.
   - Simple: To sort pieces of information and give each one a label, usually by hand.
   - _Annotators grade every transcript by hand, tagging each one with a topic label before it is added to the training data._
   - _Because the automatic labels proved unreliable, the researchers graded the scans by hand, assigning each one a diagnostic category._

## Verb

14. To move from one school grade up into the next. *(dated, Canada)*
   - Simple: To move up from one school year to the next one.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A taxon grouped by a shared level of morphological or physiological complexity rather than by common descent.
- (noun) Any of the three stages (positive, comparative, or superlative) in the comparison of an adjective or adverb.
- (verb) To describe, modify, or inflect a word so as to classify it by degree.
- (verb) To resize a garment pattern up or down from a base size while keeping the overall proportions consistent across all sizes.
- (verb) To trim the layers of a stitched seam allowance to different widths, reducing bulk and helping the finished seam lie flat.
- (noun) A unit of plane angle equal to one-hundredth of a right angle; a gradian.
- (noun) An eyeglass prescription specifying the corrective strength needed for a person's lenses.
- (noun) In algebraic geometry, the number of free points where n generic divisors of a linear system on an n-dimensional variety intersect.
- (noun) A harsh scraping or cutting action, or the grating sound it produces.

## Origin

Grade was borrowed from Middle French grade ("a grade, degree"), which came from Latin gradus ("a step, pace, degree"). This traces back through Proto-Italic to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to walk, go." Gothic griþs ("step, grade") and Lithuanian gridiju ("to go, wander") are traditionally linked to it, though that connection is disputed.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/grade (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).