Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A second-year student in a US college.
  • noun A tenth-grade student in a US high school.
  • noun A person in the second year of carrying out an endeavor.
  • noun A three-year-old racehorse, usually in its second year of racing.
  • adjective Of or relating to the second year of an endeavor, especially of attending a school or college.
  • adjective Being the second in a series.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A student in the second year of his college course.
  • Pertaining to a sophomore, or to the second year of the college course; characteristic of sophomores: as, sophomore studies; sophomore rhetoric.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One belonging to the second of the four classes in an American college, or one next above a freshman.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective US The second in a series, especially, the second of an artist’s albums or the second of four years in a high school (tenth grade) or university.
  • noun US A second-year undergraduate student in a college or university, or a second-year student in a four-year secondary school or high school.
  • noun US (horse-racing) A three year old horse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective used of the second year in United States high school or college
  • noun a second-year undergraduate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration (probably influenced by Greek sophos, wise, and mōros, stupid) of sophumer, from obsolete sophom, sophism, dialectic exercise, variant of sophism.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From earlier sophumer, from the obsolete sophom ("sophism or dialectical exercise"), likely influenced by Ancient Greek σοφός (sophos, "wise") + μωρός (mōros, "fool"). Compare oxymoron (literally "sharp-dull"), a similar contradiction.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sophomore.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.