Definition of emeritus
emeriti
play \i-ˈmer-ə-ˌtī, -ˌtē\: a person retired from professional life but permitted to retain as an honorary title the rank of the last office held
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emeritus was our Word of the Day on 11/29/2015. Hear the podcast!
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Recent Examples of emeritus from the Web
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Roger Goldman, a professor emeritus at St. Louis University who has studied monitoring of police across the U.S., said local control just doesn't work.
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John Ammerman, president emeritus of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Maritime Museum, has estimated that the project's cost at $1.5 million; the museum has launched a crowdfunding site to help cover costs at www.gofundme.com/tcefuncte-river-lighthouse.
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Gov. Byron Mallott, Juneau Mayor Ken Koelsch, Rep. Don Young and Steve Haycox, professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
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The show was curated by Thomas Krens, director emeritus of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York.
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Jordan Atkins, a graduate of Raytown High School, was awarded a $5,000 Comcast Founders scholarship, named for Ralph J. Roberts, founder and chairman emeritus of Comcast Corporation.
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Since zebra mussels only arrived in Texas in 2009, more study is needed, said Robert McMahon, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Texas at Arlington.
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Robert Benfer, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri who focuses on biological anthropology, had previously found a series of mounds shaped like orcas, condors and other animals in coastal valleys in Peru.
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Morton Keller is a professor emeritus of history at Brandeis University.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'emeritus.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
First Known Use of emeritus
circa 1701
emeritus
Definition of emeritus
1 : holding after retirement an honorary title corresponding to that held last during active service
2 : retired from an office or position professor emeritus —converted to emeriti after a plural professors emeriti
Recent Examples of emeritus from the Web
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Speakers brought to campuses traditionally tend to lean to the left politically, says Donald Downs, a UW-Madison emeritus political science professor known for his First Amendment work.
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An emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Staub said the courage of individuals who helped his family survive in the 1940s sparked his interest in the topic.
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Samuel Walker, an emeritus professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha who has studied policing, said experience working as a monitor is the most important qualification a team can have, and that local ties can undermine a monitor's independence.
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Paul Bew, emeritus professor of history at Queens University Belfast, said many senior DUP members and party cadres, including their leader, are Church of Ireland members who once belonged to the Ulster Unionists.
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The report was researched and written by David Holman, Samuel Kissinger and Robert Hammer, 2016 Ohio University graduates who worked with center CEO Richard Vedder, an emeritus professor of economics.
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Carl DeVito, an emeritus faculty in the mathematics department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, has proposed a language based on plausibly universal scientific concepts.
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Paul Ekman, now an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California.
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In 2015 and 2016, the company made at least $254,000 in campaign contributions to state Democrats and Republicans, according to an analysis by Kent Redfield, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'emeritus.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
The adjective emeritus is unusual in two ways: it's frequently used postpositively (that is, after the noun it modifies), and it has a plural form—emeriti—when it modifies a plural noun in its second sense. If you've surmised from these qualities that the word is Latin in origin, you are correct. Emeritus, which is the Latin past participle of the verb emereri, meaning "to serve out one's term," was originally used to describe soldiers who had completed their duty. (Emereri is from the prefix e-, meaning "out," and merēre, meaning "to earn, deserve, or serve"—also the source of our English word merit.) By the early 18th century, English speakers were using emeritus as an adjective to refer to professors who had retired from office. The word eventually came to be applied to other professions where a retired member may continue to hold a title in an honorary capacity.
Origin and Etymology of emeritus
Latin, past participle of emereri to serve out one's term, from e- + mereri, merēre to earn, deserve, serve — more at merit
EMERITUS Defined for English Language Learners
emeritus
Definition of emeritus for English Language Learners
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: retired with an honorary title from an office or position especially in a university
Learn More about emeritus
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Britannica English: Translation of emeritus for Arabic speakers
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