graduate
Universities graduate graduate students every spring.
The verb keeps its full final syllable, /ˈɡrædʒueɪt/, while the adjective reduces it to a schwa, /ˈɡrædʒuət/ — the classic '-ate' stress-and-vowel split. Here the university performs the verb on people described by the adjective: it graduates its own graduate students. The back-to-back pair makes the ear catch the vowel change mid-phrase, and the sentence stays perfectly grammatical with no punctuation crutch.
Meanings
to confer an academic degree on someone; to successfully complete a course of study
- She will graduate from medical school in June.
- The academy graduates two hundred cadets every year.
relating to study pursued after a bachelor's degree; (as a noun) a person who has received a degree
- He is applying to graduate programs in physics.
- A recent graduate moved in next door.
Word origin
From Medieval Latin 'graduatus', past participle of 'graduari' (to take a degree), from Latin 'gradus' (step, rung, degree). A degree is literally a step — the same root gives 'gradual', 'gradient', and 'grade'.
Fun fact
For most of its history the verb was passive: a student 'was graduated from' a college by the institution, which did the graduating. The active 'she graduated from Harvard' was condemned by usage guides well into the 20th century — and the newer 'she graduated Harvard', dropping the 'from' entirely, still sparks arguments today.