emeritus
adjective/ɪˈmerɪtəs/
/ɪˈmerɪtəs/
(often Emeritus)
- used before or after a title to show that a person, usually a university teacher, keeps the title as an honour, although he or she has stopped working
- the Emeritus Professor of Biology
- the National Gallery's director emeritus
Word Originmid 18th cent.: from Latin, past participle of emereri ‘earn one's discharge by service’, from e- (variant of ex-) ‘out of, from’ + mereri ‘earn’.Definitions on the go
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emeritus