Postgrad

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /pousˈɡɹɛːt/

Definitions

1. An individual studying at a level that exceeds a bachelor's degree, often focusing on specialized knowledge or research projects in a specific field
2. A person engaged in academic pursuits beyond an undergraduate degree, typically involving advanced study or research in a particular discipline
3. An individual enrolled in higher education studies that follow the completion of a bachelor's degree, with an emphasis on specialization or scholarly research

Etymology: "Postgrad" is a clipped form of "postgraduate," so its history is really the history of that longer word. The prefix "post-" comes from Latin "post," meaning "after" or "behind," which reached English through Old Latin "pose" and the Proto-Italic "posti." The base word "graduate" is the older element, and "post-" was attached to it to mean "after graduating." "Graduate" itself comes from medieval Latin "graduare," meaning to advance by degrees, from Latin "gradus," a step. A graduate, then, is someone who has climbed a step, and the academic sense of completing a degree grew out of that image of ascending a ladder of study. The clipped form "postgrad" is a informal shortening of the full word, common in British and Commonwealth speech, and it follows the same pattern as other clipped academic terms such as "undergrad."

Synonyms: graduate, alumnus