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In Latin, emeritus was used to describe soldiers who had completed their duty. It is the past participle of the verb emereri, meaning "to serve out one's term," from the prefix e-, meaning "out," and merēre, "to earn, deserve, or serve." (Merēre is also the source of our word merit.) English speakers claimed emeritus as their own in the late 17th century, applying it as both a noun and an adjective referring or relating not to soldiers but to someone who is retired from professional life but permitted to keep as an honorary title the rank of the last office they held. The adjective is frequently used postpositively—that is, after the noun it modifies rather than before it—and it is most commonly used to describe specifically those retired from a professorship.
Examples of emeritus in a Sentence
Alex Weprin, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Sep. 2024
Born in Chicago, Hopfield is now an emeritus professor at Princeton University.
—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Oct. 2024
Weatherhead, who earned a bachelor’s degree in theatre in 1965 from Tulane’s Newcomb College, currently serves on the Public Health Dean’s Advisory Council, the school’s top advisory board and is an emeritus member of the Board of Tulane, the university’s main governing body.
—Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes, 18 Sep. 2024
In the 1980s educational psychologist Linda Siegel, now an emeritus professor at the University of British Columbia, began investigating some of these anecdotal suspicions.
—Sarah Carr, Scientific American, 1 Dec. 2023
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Cite this Entry
“Emeritus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
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