emeritus

noun emer·i·tus \ i-ˈmer-ə-təs \

Definition of emeritus

plural 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

emeritus was our Word of the Day on 11/29/2015. Hear the podcast!

Recent Examples of emeritus from the Web

In the beginning If this unofficial fraternity of Cougars quarterbacks is a club, then Jason Gesser is president, and Jack Thompson is founder and president emeritus.

— stefanie loh, The Seattle Times, "Luke Falk the latest member of college football’s most unique fraternity: the WSU Quarterbacks Club," 30 Aug. 2017
The platform height is crucial, says Robert Bea, a professor emeritus in civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, because it is supposed to protect platforms from the most dangerous part of the storm.

— sarah zhang, The Atlantic, "When a Hurricane Hits an Offshore Oil Platform," 25 Aug. 2017
Alfred B. Evans, Jr. is professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at California State University at Fresno.

— alfred b. evans, Washington Post, "Many Russians aren’t protesting against Putin — they want his help," 21 Aug. 2017
A review study conducted by Robert Gable, an emeritus psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University, found that the lethal dose for marijuana (15 grams or above) is 1,000 times greater than the effective dose (15 milligrams).

— danielle corcione, Teen Vogue, "5 Marijuana Myths You Should Not Believe," 14 Aug. 2017
That includes a group led by Leo Stodolsky, a physicist and director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, Germany, which is developing cryogenic detectors that can spot nuclear recoils with far lower energies.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Milk jug–sized detector captures neutrinos in a whole new way," 3 Aug. 2017
Classes were often held in the boardroom of the Pilgrim Bank, of which Mr. Pilgrim was chairman emeritus.

— robert d. hershey jr., New York Times, "Bo Pilgrim, Founder of Pilgrim’s Pride Poultry Products, Dies at 89," 24 July 2017
According to Wesleyan's website, Beveridge is a professor emeritus of chemistry and co-director of the Susan B. and William K. Wasch Center for Retired Faculty.

— christine dempsey, courant.com, "Middletown Police: Dog Dies In Hot Car, Retired Wesleyan Professor Arrested," 20 July 2017
Mogul will move into a new role as president emeritus, working with United Way’s Endowment, managing donor relationships and advising the organization.

— chabeli herrera, miamiherald, "Banker and civic leader Maria Alonso named new chief of United Way," 12 July 2017

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

Other Forms of Address Terms

appellation, beatitude, brethren, esquire, sire, sous

emeritus

adjective

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

See emeritus defined for English-language learners

See emeritus defined for kids

Recent Examples of emeritus from the Web

But the Northwest salmon and steelhead nonetheless have genetics tuned for cold water, noted Jack Stanford, an emeritus professor of ecology with the University of Montana, affiliated with the Flathead Lake Biological Station.

— lynda v. mapes, The Seattle Times, "Steelhead struggling home in record low numbers," 18 Aug. 2017
Gary Lock, emeritus professor of archaeology at Oxford, tells Horatio Clare at The Financial Times that the project is an attempt to get the public to recognize and protect the historic structures that are sprinkled around them.

— jason daley, Smithsonian, "Explore Ancient British Isles Hill Forts with a New Online Atlas," 24 June 2017
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.

— lillian price, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Assembly bill on UW free speech threatening expulsion set for vote amid First Amendment debate," 20 June 2017
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.

— emily lane, NOLA.com, "In 'EPIC' effort, New Orleans police work to stop officer misconduct before it happens," 14 June 2017
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.

— ian duncan, baltimoresun.com, "Baltimore civil rights monitor applications present a choice: Local knowledge or national expertise," 14 June 2017
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.

— ed o’loughlin, The Seattle Times, "U.K. election: How a forgotten Northern Ireland party became ‘kingmaker’," 10 June 2017
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.

— cliff pinckard, cleveland.com, "The cleveland.com news quiz for Friday, 06/09/2017," 9 June 2017
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.

— NBC News, "Here's How We Might Talk with Space Aliens," 9 June 2017

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.