graduated

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of graduate.

   He graduated with honors in chemistry.

   Most of the class graduated into a difficult job market.

   Note

   One form does double duty, as the simple past (she graduated) and as the participle (she has graduated). The verb behind it is particular about prepositions. Graduated from college is the standard pattern. Graduated college, with the institution as a direct object, is proscribed. A passive, was graduated, also exists, because the school itself can be said to graduate the student.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having earned a university degree or completed a formal course of training.

   The clinic prefers to hire graduated therapists with field experience.

   Every graduated architect on the team holds a state license.

   Similarqualified, certified, trained

3. 3
   adjective

   Marked with a scale of lines indicating measured quantities.

   A graduated cylinder lets chemists measure liquid volumes precisely.

   The surveyor read the height off a graduated staff.

   Similarcalibrated, marked

4. 4
   adjective

   Arranged in steps according to grade, level, or degree.

   Therapists often use a graduated exposure plan to treat phobias.

   The agreement laid out a graduated series of sanctions.

   Similargraded, stepped, progressive, incremental, tiered

   Note

   Change by measured stages rather than all at once is the heart of this sense, and its natural opposite is abrupt. Joseph Stevens, in A Parochial History of St. Mary Bourne (1888), sets the graduated slope of the Upper Test Valley against its more abrupt western embankment. Today the word most often modifies plans and schemes, as in graduated exposure and graduated sanctions.

5. 5
   adjective

   Increasing in rate as the taxable base grows, so larger amounts are taxed at higher percentages.

   The state replaced its flat tax with a graduated one.

   Lawmakers proposed a graduated levy on high property values.

   Similarprogressive

   Oppositeflat

   Note

   Tax law's version of the stepped idea divides income or value into brackets, and each higher bracket carries a higher rate. The rise applies at the margin, so crossing into a higher bracket raises the rate only on the amount above the threshold, not on the whole sum. The usual foil is a flat tax, charged at one rate throughout.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a tail, having feathers that grow successively longer toward the middle.

   The field guide noted the bird's graduated tail and pointed wingtips.

   A graduated tail helps the hawk steer through sharp turns.

   Note

   A field-guide term for the shape of a bird's tail. The tail feathers, or rectrices, lengthen pair by pair from the outside in, so the central pair is longest and the folded tail ends in a point or wedge. Here the steps are the staggered feather tips, which is why a word for scales and grades also fits a tail.

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