graduation
Pluralgraduations
- 1The act or process of completing a course of study, as at a school or university, and receiving a diploma for it.
Her graduation from nursing school made the whole family proud.
Fewer than half of the students reached graduation within four years.
- 2The ceremony at which students formally receive their diplomas or degrees.
We're flying to Ohio for my niece's graduation on Saturday.
The school holds two graduations each year, one in May and one in December.
Similarcommencement, convocation
Note
The ceremony has a formal name, commencement, and the two words face opposite ways: graduation looks back at the course completed, commencement forward to what begins once it is over. As a countable noun it names each event, so a school can hold two graduations a year and a family can attend several in one summer.
- 3A mark, as on a container, that shows a measurement on a scale, usually one of a series of marks.
Fill the beaker exactly to the 50-milliliter graduation.
The graduations on the old measuring cup had almost worn away.
Note
Laboratory glassware shows the word at work: a beaker, cylinder or pipette carries a column of graduations, often numbered only every few lines with finer marks between. A vessel marked this way is graduated, as in a graduated cylinder, and the marks taken together make up its scale; each one on its own is a graduation.
- 4In Japanese entertainment, the act or process of a member leaving a group.
The singer announced her graduation from the idol group after eight years as a member.
Two graduations in one season left the group without its best-known faces.
Similardeparture
Note
Japanese pop culture borrows the school picture: a member who leaves an idol group such as AKB48 graduates from it. The word frames the departure as a finish and a step forward rather than a firing or a split, which is why English writing about Japanese groups keeps it, usually with from and the group's name.
- 5The exposure of a liquid to the air over large surfaces so that it evaporates faster.
At the old salt works, brine was concentrated by graduation before it was boiled.
The workers sped up graduation by letting the brine trickle down tall frames packed with twigs.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from graduate + -ion.