Word.ws English Dictionary

freshmen

freshmen is the plural of freshman.

Meaning of freshman

Noun

freshman (plural freshmen)

  1. (Canada, Philippines, US) a person (of either sex) entering the first year of an institution, especially a high school (ninth grade for US, grade 9 for Canada, grade 7 for Philippines), a university, or legislative body
    • At the time I was a wide-eyed freshman, but I was soon to grow jaded and cynical.
    Synonyms:
    first-year student, first year student, 1st year student, 1st yr student
  2. (obsolete) a novice; one in the rudiments of knowledge
    • I am but a Freshman yet in France, therefore I can send you no News but that all is here quiet, and 'tis no ordinary News that the French should be quiet.1619 August 6, James Howell, The Familiar Letters of James Howell, volume 1, published 1892, Letter XIII, page 39

Questions about freshmen

What is freshmen the plural of?
Freshmen is the plural of freshman.

Words near freshmen in the dictionary

  1. freshmanhood
  2. freshmanic
  3. freshmanitis
  4. freshmanly
  5. freshmanship
  6. freshmen
  7. freshmint
  8. freshness
  9. freshnesses
  10. Freshour
  11. Freshours

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: freshmen (page history and authors); freshman (page history and authors). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-freshmen.wav.

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