Definition of "baccalaureate" [bac•ca•lau•re•ate]

• See bachelor's degree. (noun)
• A farewell address in the form of a sermon delivered to a graduating class. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This international baccalaureate is tightly controlled by Geneva."
• "At the American Prospect blog, Dana Goldstein writes that "French teenagers are smarter than all of us" because certain French baccalaureate exams, taken by those who desire to attend college, include pretentious questions requiring the young respondents to feign familiarity with the work of various philosophes."
• "In the future what we now call the baccalaureate will not exist."