graduate

to confer a degree upon, or to grant a diploma to, at the close of a course of study, as in a university, college, or school: Cornell graduated eighty students with honors.

Informal. to receive a degree or diploma from: She graduated college in 1950.

10.

to arrange in grades or gradations; establish gradation in.

11.

to divide into or mark with degrees or other divisions, as the scale of a thermometer.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English < Medieval Latin graduātus (past participle of graduāre), equivalent to grad(us) grade, step + -u- thematic vowel + -ātus -ate¹

Related forms

grad·u·a·tor, noun

non·grad·u·ate, noun

su·per·grad·u·ate, noun

un·grad·u·at·ing, adjective

Usage note
In the sense “to receive a degree or diploma” graduate followed by from is the most common construction today: Her daughter graduated from Yale in 1981. The passive form was graduated from, formerly insisted upon as the only correct pattern, has decreased in use and occurs infrequently today: My husband was graduated from West Point last year. Even though it is condemned by some as nonstandard, the use of graduate as a transitive verb meaning “to receive a degree or diploma from” is increasing in frequency in both speech and writing: The twins graduated high school in 1974.

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To graduate

Collins

World English Dictionary

graduate

—n
1.	a. a person who has been awarded a first degree from a university or college
	b. (as modifier): a graduate profession
2.	(US), (Canadian) a student who has completed a course of studies at a high school and received a diploma
3.	(US) a container, such as a flask, marked to indicate its capacity

—vb (often foll by to)
4.	to receive or cause to receive a degree or diploma
5.	chiefly (US), (Canadian) (tr) to confer a degree, diploma, etc upon
6.	(tr) to mark (a thermometer, flask, etc) with units of measurement; calibrate
7.	(tr) to arrange or sort into groups according to type, quality, etc
8.	to change by degrees (from something to something else)

[C15: from Medieval Latin graduārī to take a degree, from Latin gradus a step]

'graduator

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

graduate

late 15c., from M.L. graduatus, pp. of graduari "to take a degree," from L. gradus "step, grade" (see grade). The abbreviated form grad is attested from 1871. The verb is 1580s (trans.), 1807 (intrans.).

Slang Dictionary

graduate definition

[ˈgrædʒuət]

n.
a person experienced in life, especially sexually experienced. : Britney is a graduate. Nothing is new to her.
in.
[ˈgrædʒuet]to move from casual drug use to addiction. (Drugs.) : Gert graduated to smack after only a year of skin-popping.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Example sentences

To provide graduate medical education payments to support community-based training.

He defied paternal expectations by leaving a prestigious graduate school for civil-servant training to go into book publishing.

No one should deny that graduate education is in a bad way at the moment.

Limited on-campus accommodation is available in the graduate residence hall and

in married-student apartments.

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Matching Quote

"[On Harvard President Charles William Eliot's lamentation that the average Harvard graduate had fewer than two children:] That is quite enough. Harvard graduates do not always make the best fathers. Why should we be agitated over the too small families of the rich when there are so many children of the poor that are not cared for? The rich should make it their duty to raise up these children to a higher standard.... Men of the world hate to give up their tobacco, liquor, sports, clubs, their luxurious habits, their freedom from responsibility. They prefer to flock together and so women are compelled to do the same. President Eliot talks as though the young women were sitting around anxiously and aimlessly waiting for the graduates to come and get them. He would find, if he should make the proper investigation, that a class of women is being developed who are demanding a higher standard of morals in men than did those of past generations, and if they cannot get husbands who reach this standard they are making very satisfactory careers for themselves outside of marriage."

-Susan B. Anthony