homecoming

noun

home·com·ing | \ ˈhōm-ˌkə-miŋ

Definition of homecoming

1 : a return home a soldier's homecoming

2 : the return of a group of people usually on a special occasion to a place formerly frequented or regarded as home especially : an annual celebration for alumni at a high school, college, or university —often used before another noun a homecoming rally homecoming weekend the annual homecoming game/dance was elected the homecoming queen

Examples of homecoming in a Sentence

A large crowd gathered at the airport for the soldiers' homecoming.

Recent Examples on the Web

The candidates were winnowed to 20, then 10 were elected by the student body to the homecoming court. — Julia Prodis Sulek, The Mercury News, "Autistic teenager at San Jose’s Leigh High School embraced, lauded at graduation," 6 June 2019 Lindsay Warner is nominated for homecoming queen and Chad Westerfield, played by young Jimmy Marsden, wanted her attention. — Blake Bakkila, Good Housekeeping, "Hey 'Saved by the Bell' Fans: Do You Recognize James Marsden From This 1993 Episode?," 26 May 2019 The idea for Beyoncé's performance came from traditional homecoming celebrations at HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). — Carolyn Twersky, Seventeen, "Twitter is Accusing Taylor Swift of Copying Beyoncé's Homecoming Performance at the 2019 BBMAs," 2 May 2019 One of my students was recently the target of a bullying incident where some kids decided to make up a fake homecoming proposal. — Janine Puhak, Fox News, "Miss Utah hopeful takes autistic high schooler to homecoming after classmates play cruel prank," 25 Sep. 2018 Watch the first trailer here: The series marks a homecoming for Clooney, who got his big break starring as Dr. Doug Ross on the long-running medical drama ER back in the '90s. — Maggie Maloney, Town & Country, "The First Trailer for George Clooney's New Series Catch-22 Is Finally Here," 13 Feb. 2019 The Bengals will introduce Taylor on Tuesday in what amounts to a homecoming for the 35-year-old coach. — Joe Kay, The Seattle Times, "With wait over, Bengals hire Zac Taylor as coach," 4 Feb. 2019 Moustakas even hit free agency, an experiment that ended in an agreement to a short-term homecoming. — Maria Torres, kansascity, "Royals' Moustakas is already hitting the ball harder than he did last year | The Kansas City Star," 1 Apr. 2018 For her, having an apartment downtown feels like a homecoming, but better. — Alina Cho, ELLE Decor, "Uptown Glamour Goes Downtown in a Bold West Village Pad," 22 Feb. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'homecoming.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.