baccalaureate
noun/ˌbækəˈlɔːriət/
/ˌbækəˈlɔːriət/
- the last secondary school exam in France and some other countries, and in some international schools
- to sit/take/pass/fail your baccalaureate
- (in the US) a religious service or talk for students who have completed high school or college
Word Originmid 17th cent. (in the sense of a university bachelor's degree): from French baccalauréat or medieval Latin baccalaureatus, from baccalaureus ‘bachelor’. The earlier form baccalarius was altered by wordplay to conform with bacca lauri ‘laurel berry’, because of the laurels awarded to scholars. Sense (1) dates from 1970.
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baccalaureate