Word.ws English Dictionary

dean

/diːn/

dean noun: a senior official in a college or university, who may be in charge of a division or faculty (for example, the dean of science) or have some other advisory or disciplinary function (for example, the dean of students). Also the alternative form of dene.

Noun (1)

dean (plural deans)

  1. A senior official in a college or university, who may be in charge of a division or faculty (for example, the dean of science) or have some other advisory or disciplinary function (for example, the dean of students).
    • Lucretius versus the Lake Poets ' Nature I loved ; and next to Nature , Art . '
      Dean , adult education may seem silly .
      What of it though ? I got some willy - nilly
      The other evening at your college deanery .
      And grateful for it ( Let's not be facetious!)[…]1995 October, Robert Frost, Richard Poirier, Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (LOA #81) (DE-601)374069697: Library of America series), Library of America, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 357
  2. A dignitary or presiding officer in certain church bodies, especially an ecclesiastical dignitary, subordinate to a bishop, in charge of a chapter of canons.
    Synonyms:
    provost
  3. The senior member of some group of people.
    • dean of the diplomatic corps - a country's most senior ambassador
    • dean of the House - the longest-serving member of a legislature

Verb

dean (third-person singular simple present deans, present participle deaning, simple past and past participle deaned)

  1. (intransitive, rare) To serve as a dean.
  2. (informal, transitive, otherwise rare) To send (a student) to see the dean of a college or university.

Noun (2)

dean (plural deans)

  1. (Sussex) A hill.

Proper noun capitalized: Dean

Dean (countable and uncountable, plural Deans)

  1. A title afforded to a dean.
  2. A habitational surname from Middle English from Middle English dene “valley”.
  3. A surname from Irish
  4. A surname from Scottish
  5. A surname originating as an occupation
  6. A surname transferred from the given name
  7. (countable) A male given name
    • On the normier part of the spectrum are liberal influencers like Dean Withers and Harry Sisson, who have transferred the “debate me, bro” spirit of early YouTube to TikTok Live.2025 March 17, Andrew Marantz, “The Battle for the Bros”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2025
    1. A male given name transferred from the surname
    2. A male given name originating as an occupation derived from the title.
  8. A village and civil parish in Cumberland, Cumbria, previously in Allerdale borough (OS grid ref NY0725).
  9. A hamlet in Lynton and Lynmouth parish, North Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SS7048).
  10. A hamlet in Trentishoe parish, North Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SS6245).
  11. A hamlet in West Down parish, North Devon district, Devon (OS grid ref SS5042).
  12. A hamlet in Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge parish, east Dorset (OS grid ref ST9715).
Show 13 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. A hamlet in Bishop's Waltham parish, Winchester district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU5619).
  2. A hamlet in Sparsholt parish, Winchester district, Hampshire (OS grid ref SU4431).
  3. A locality between Water and Weir, Rossendale borough, Lancashire (OS grid ref SD8525).
  4. A hamlet in Spelsbury parish, West Oxfordshire district, Oxfordshire (OS grid ref SP3422).
  5. A hamlet in Cranmore parish, Mendip district, Somerset (OS grid ref ST6744).
  6. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of Dean Village: A neighbourhood, a former village in Edinburgh, Scotland.
  7. A small township in the Shire of Hepburn, central Victoria, Australia.
  8. A small community in the Musquodoboit Valley, Nova Scotia, Canada.
  9. An unincorporated community in Monterey County, California.
  10. An unincorporated community in Appanoose County, Iowa.
  11. A ghost town in Lander County, Nevada.
  12. A township and village therein, in Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
  13. A minor city in Clay County, Texas.

Also used as

dean is also the alternative form of dene.

dean meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

dean in Hindi

senior official in college or university
संकायाध्यक्ष saṅkāyādhyakṣ

dean in Marathi

डीन, डीनला, डीनकडे

dean in Urdu

ڈین

dean in Bengali

ডিন, ডিনকে
More languagesFewer languages
dean in Telugu
డీన్, డిన్
dean in Malayalam
ഡീൻ, ഡീന്
dean in Kannada
ಡೀನ್, ಡಿನ್, ಡೀನ್ಗೆ
dean in Punjabi
ਡੀਨ, ਡੀਨ ਤੱਕ
dean in Gujarati
ડીન, ડીનને
dean in Odia
ଡିନ୍, ଡିନ୍ଙ୍କୁ
dean in Nepali
डीन, डिन
dean in Tagalog
dalubpuno, dekano
dean in Indonesian
dekan
dean in Thai
คณบดี ká-ná-bɔɔ-dii

Examples of dean in a sentence

  • Dean Ashton was called up to the England squad for the first time.
  • The dean trespassed the streaker from his university.
  • Dean says "I love you" but it's not quite on purpose.

All 32 example sentences with dean

Synonyms of dean

Forms of dean

Noun
pluraldeans
Verb
third-person singular presentdeans
present participledeaning
past participledeaned
pastdeaned
Proper noun
pluralDeans

Plural of dean: deans

Origin of dean

From Middle English den, deen (“dean”), from Anglo-Norman deen and continental Old French deien (modern French doyen), from Latin decānus. Doublet of doyen.

Related to den.

The surname or given name is of multiple origins, depending on context: * As an English surname, from Middle English dene (“valley”). * Also as an English surname, from the noun dean. Cognate to Deacon. * Also as an English surname, from the personal name Deyne, a rhyming form of Reynald (see Reginald). * As an Irish surname, variant of Deane. * As a Scottish surname, from Dean Castle in Kilmarnock, itself from the noun meaning valley. * Old English Dene (“Dane, Norseman”) * Hebrew דין (“law, judgment”) and Arabic دين (“way of life, creed”)

Words formed from dean

Phrases with dean

Words that rhyme with dean

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dean

What does dean mean?
Dean means a senior official in a college or university, who may be in charge of a division or faculty (for example, the dean of science) or have some other advisory or disciplinary function (for example, the dean of students).
What is dean in Hindi?
Dean in Hindi is संकायाध्यक्ष (saṅkāyādhyakṣ). See Dean meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is dean?
Dean can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce dean?
Dean is pronounced /diːn/.
What is the plural of dean?
The plural of dean is deans.

Words near dean in the dictionary

  1. deamplifications
  2. deamplified
  3. deamplifies
  4. deamplify
  5. deamplifying
  6. dean
  7. dean and chapter
  8. Dean and Shelton
  9. Dean drive
  10. Dean drives
  11. Dean of the Arches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dean (page history and authors); Dean (page history and authors); dean (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dean (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dean.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Dean.wav.

Cite this entry: “dean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.