as in essays
a long piece of writing about a particular subject that is done to earn an advanced degree at a university
He wrote his dissertation on an obscure 16th-century poet.
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Recent Examples of dissertations
People would devote entire dissertations to developing techniques for distinguishing handwritten digits or for recognizing faces in images; then a deep-learning algorithm would digest the underlying data, discover the subtleties of the problem, and make those projects seem obsolete.
—
James Somers, New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2025
Candidates conduct original research, publish findings, and defend their dissertations in front of experts in their fields.
—Leadership Brainery, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
James Somers, New Yorker, 3 Nov. 2025
Candidates conduct original research, publish findings, and defend their dissertations in front of experts in their fields.
—Leadership Brainery, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissertations
Noun
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The instructional promise of each episode was a bit, a starting point for discursive, funny, intermittently personal mini-essays that always started in Wilson’s beloved New York, but could and did make their way anywhere.—
Alison Willmore,
Vulture,
23 Jan. 2026
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Listen to our Greatest Pop Stars podcast discussion about the KPop Demon Hunters takeover year here, and find the rest of our updating top 10 list with all our corresponding essays and pods here.—
Abby Webster,
Billboard,
23 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The commentaries between the president and the governor, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, also came on the same day Newsom was denied entry to the USA House, despite being scheduled to speak at a fireside chat with Fortune Media.—
Terry Collins,
USA Today,
22 Jan. 2026
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This excerpt includes the book’s preface and the lyrics and commentaries for six songs.—
John Darnielle,
Rolling Stone,
11 Dec. 2025
Noun
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The collection, now over 40,000 volumes, includes Greek and Arabic manuscripts, early cartographic works and rare scientific treatises gathered from across the Iberian world.—
Navya Verma,
Condé Nast Traveler,
2 Jan. 2026
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Apart from its famous Devil portrait (more on that later), the codex contains an entire Bible, other historical texts, an encyclopedia, and medical treatises.—
Christopher McFadden,
Interesting Engineering,
25 Dec. 2025
Noun
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Harry’s claims center on 14 articles published between 2001 and 2013.—
Simon Perry,
PEOPLE,
21 Jan. 2026
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The supposedly strained relationship between the Beckham family and Brooklyn, along with his wife Nicola Peltz, have inspired articles and social media commentary for years, but without hard evidence to back anything up.—
Dani Di Placido,
Forbes.com,
21 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The discipline has built a vast array of empirical theses deep inside this single ideology—liberalism—and, in doing so, has naturalized it.—
Jason Blakely,
Harpers Magazine,
30 Dec. 2025
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Kirk has two main theses in his book, and expresses each in a very different tone.—
Judith Shulevitz,
The Atlantic,
22 Dec. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dissertations.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissertations. Accessed 25 Jan. 2026.
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