graduates

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of graduate.

   This year's graduates will receive their diplomas on Saturday.

   Engineering graduates often earn higher starting salaries than their peers.

   Note

   The plural reaches further than the campus. In the US and Canada, graduates can be high-school leavers as well as degree holders, and in the Philippines the word covers anyone who has completed a level of schooling. It also names measuring vessels: graduates in this sense are cups or containers marked with degrees. The same idea of steps lies behind the adjective graduate, 'arranged by degrees'.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of graduate.

   My sister graduates from medical school next month.

   The class graduates after completing four years of study.

   Note

   Here the usage trap is the preposition. She graduates from college is safe in any register. She graduates college, with the school as a direct object, is a proscribed shortcut. The institution can also be the subject: a university graduates its students, certifying their degrees. A maker graduates a thermometer by marking its scale in regular steps, the same idea behind the measuring-cup noun.

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