commencement ceremony
1
3.5
- noun
- /kəˈmɛnsmənt ˈsɛrəˌmoʊni/
- Formal
:
ceremonia de graduación
- She was a graduate of OSSC, and Buffalo Joe discovered she was going to be honored as the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year at the commencement ceremonies.
- the university commencement ceremony
- the college commencement ceremony
- the commencement ceremony today
Examples
-
I was tasked with providing a slideshow at the graduation commencement ceremony.
Academic text (2007) -
A commencement ceremony is neither the time nor the place to risk heat stroke and dehydration with an extended pageant in a basketball arena-cum-auditorium or a sun-drenched football stadium.
Academic text (2016) -
Last weekend, we concluded our series of commencement ceremonies.
Blog text (15) -
This morning, a 12th floor studio at Fox News Channel hosted the commencement ceremony of the Ailes Apprenticeship Program.
Blog text (21) -
MENC Executive Director John J. Mahlmann will accept an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Duquesne University at the school's commencement ceremony on May 10.
Academic text (1997) -
A United States marshal was ordered to be present at the commencement ceremony to make sure that any prayers did not mention specific names such as Jesus or refer to specific religious figures such as Buddha or Mohammed.
Academic text (1996) -
Several members of the family continued it the following Saturday, the 20th, journeying by train to Helsinki for the commencement ceremony of Wendla, who became the first woman to graduate from the School of Theology of the University of Helsinki.
Fiction book (1992) -
"It is a solemn and important bit of pageantry, which is why so many commencement ceremonies include Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" as the processional and recessional.
Academic text (2016) -
The university-wide commencement ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday at Xfinity Center.
-
Local college graduation season kicks off this weekend, as Irvine's Concordia University holds its commencement ceremony Saturday.
Synonyms
90
2.0
A ceremony where students receive degrees or diplomas
31
6.5
A ceremony where students receive their degrees
1
5.6
A formal ceremony where students receive degrees or diplomas
1
3.6
A ceremony where students get their diplomas
1
9.7
A formal university ceremony for graduating students
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents denote the same domain — 'commencement' (a formal degree-awarding event) and 'ceremony' (a ritualized event) — so their combination is fully compositional and directly signals a graduation event. This is a transparent noun–noun combination following regular English composition patterns and has clear equivalents in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows the two words would readily understand the phrase.
Etymology
Commencement ceremony comes from an older meaning of commencement as 'a beginning', and ceremony as the formal event when students officially become graduates. So this event marks the start of a student's new life after study, which is why it means 'graduation' today.