Word.ws English Dictionary

university

Syllables: u·ni·ver·si·ty/junɪˈvɜːsəti//ˌjunəˈvərsədi/

university noun: an institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the conferral of academic degrees across undergraduate, graduate, and often professional levels.

university: an institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the...
Image: CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

university (countable and uncountable, plural universities)

  1. An institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the conferral of academic degrees across undergraduate, graduate, and often professional levels.
    • She's studying mathematics at university.
    • The only reason why I haven't gone to university is because I can't afford it.
  2. (obsolete) The entirety of a group; all members of a class.
    • [I]t appears a pity to banish the women and children. But to this can be opposed that holy act of your Majesty which expelled the Moriscos, and the children of the Moriscos, for the reason given in the royal edict. Whenever any detestable crime is committed by any university, it is well to punish...1841, George Borrow, The Zincali - Or, An Account of the Gypsies of Spain

university meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

university in Hindi

institution of higher education
विश्वविद्यालय viśvavidyālay, यूनिवर्सिटी yūnivarsiṭī

university in Tamil

institution of higher education
பல்கலைக்கழகம் palkalaikkaḻakam

university in Marathi

institution of higher education
विद्यापीठ vidyāpīṭh, युनिव्हर्सिटी yunivharsiṭī

university in Urdu

institution of higher education
جامِعَہ jāmi'a, دارُ الْعُلُوم dārul-'ulūm, دانِش گاہ dāniś gāh, یُونِیوَرْسِٹی yūnīvarsiṭī, دار الفنون dār-ul-funūn
More languagesFewer languages
university in Bengali
বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় biśśobiddaloẏ, জামেয়া jameẏa
university in Telugu
విశ్వవిద్యాలయము viśvavidyālayamu
university in Malayalam
സർവ്വകലാശാല saṟvvakalāśāla, യൂനിവേഴ്സിറ്റി yūnivēḻsiṟṟi, യൂണിവേഴ്സിറ്റി yūṇivēḻsiṟṟi
university in Kannada
ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾನಿಲಯ viśvavidyānilaya, ಕಲಿವೀಡು kalivīḍu
university in Punjabi
ਯੂਨੀਵਰਸਿਟੀ yūnīvarsiṭī
university in Gujarati
યુનિવર્સિટી yunivarsiṭī
university in Sinhala
විශ්ව විද්යාලය wiśwa widyālaya, විශ්වවිද්යාල wiśwawidyāla
university in Assamese
বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় bissobiiddaloy
university in Pashto
پوهنتون pohantun
university in Tagalog
pamantasan, unibersidad
university in Arabic
جَامِعَة jāmiʕa
university in Malay
universiti, menara gading, madrasah jamiah
university in Indonesian
universitas, universitet
university in Thai
มหาวิทยาลัย má-hǎa-wít-tá-yaa-lai
university in Vietnamese
trường đại học, đại học
university in Myanmar
တက္ကသိုလ် takka.suil
Sindhi
ڪاليج kālej

Examples of university in a sentence

  • She's studying medicine at university because she wants to be a doctor in the future.
  • An increasing number of sports activities are on offer at the university.
  • He teaches Latin American history at the university and publishes books about the Cold War.

All 40 example sentences with university

Synonyms of university

All synonyms of university

Forms of university

pluraluniversities

Plural of university: universities

Origin of university

From Middle English universite (“institution of higher learning, body of persons constituting a university”) from Anglo-Norman université, from Old French universitei, from Medieval Latin stem of universitas, in juridical and Late Latin "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc"; in Latin, "the whole, aggregate," from universus (“whole, entire”). By surface analysis, universe + -ity.

Words formed from university

Phrases with university

14 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about university

What does university mean?
University means an institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the conferral of academic degrees across undergraduate, graduate, and often professional levels.
What is university in Hindi?
University in Hindi is विश्वविद्यालय (viśvavidyālay), यूनिवर्सिटी (yūnivarsiṭī). See University meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is university?
University is a noun.
How do you pronounce university?
University is pronounced /junɪˈvɜːsəti/ (UK).
What is the plural of university?
The plural of university is universities.

Words near university in the dictionary

  1. universities of the streets
  2. universitize
  3. universitized
  4. universitizes
  5. universitizing
  6. university
  7. university belt
  8. University City
  9. university college
  10. university colleges
  11. university extension

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: university (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-university.ogg, en-us-university.ogg.

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