Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A student in the first-year class of a high school, college, or university.
  • noun A beginner; a novice.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A novice; one in the rudiments of knowledge.
  • noun A student of the first year in a college or university.
  • Pertaining to a freshman, or to the class composed of freshmen, in a college.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A novice; one in the rudiments of knowledge; especially, a student during his first year in a high school, college, or university.
  • noun [ U. S.] the lowest of the four classes in an American college.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete A novice; one in the rudiments of knowledge.
  • noun US A person of either sex entering the first year of an institution, especially a high school (ninth grade), a university, or legislative body.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a first-year undergraduate
  • noun any new participant in some activity
  • adjective used of a person in the first year of an experience (especially in United States high school or college)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From fresh +‎ man.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word freshman.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • For Irish English and BrE, when referring to university students use first year instead.

    March 26, 2011