DCHP-2

grad DCHP-2 (July 2016)

• 1 † n. — Education, clipping of graduate

  some who is or has graduated from a program, usually at secondary school or university.

  Use of the form for university graduates is common in throughout North America and often includes high school graduates as well. The quotations demonstrate the long tradition of clipping, e.g. graduate > grad in the educational context. This use is not a Canadianism as defined in Dollinger (2015c).

• 2 n. & adj. — Education, clipping of graduation

  a school graduation ceremony.

  Type: 3. Semantic Change — This term is a clipping from "graduation". See COD-2, s.v. "grad" (2), which labels it "Cdn". This meaning appear to have a Canadian dimension, as the common US term is "prom".

  • Grad for "graduation" used to be considered informal. During the 1990s-2000s, however, the term quickly acquired the status of a standard term (e.g., see the 2010 quote from an evening news TV host).

• 3 n. & adj. — Education, also attributively, e.g. safe grad or dry grad

  a dinner, dance or party to celebrate graduation; a prom.

  Type: 3. Semantic Change — Grad is a very popular term for what is also referred to with the common US term "prom", i.e. the high school graduation party. Noun compounds, also used as adjectives, such as "safe grad" and the more recent dry grad have been increasingly common since the late 1980s (see the 1988 and 1989 quotations). The concepts and terms of "safe" or dry grad were created in response to fatal accidents following excessive alcoholic consumption at high school graduation parties.
  See COD-2, s.v. "grad" (3), which labels it "Cdn".

  See also: dry grad  

• 4 v. — Education, youth slang, informal

  to graduate from high school.

  The status of the verbal meaning as a Canadianism according to Dollinger (2015c) is not secured, as the conversion to a verb may as well be a North American development. For the sake of completion, we include the meaning under this lexeme, but without a Canadianism Type. As we also lack evidence that this meaning is not Canadian, we stay away from making the meaning a "dagger meaning" (see the dictionary's Introduction). Rather than excluding it, we list this very recent development here (see the quotations and the evidence for youth language, e.g. the 2016 quotation from a 17-year-old female's post on a nanny site, and the 2011 quotation).
  COD-2, published in 2004, does not yet list a verbal meaning for grad.