1. A written work advancing a new point of view resulting from research; usually a requirement for an advanced academic degree: The associate professor gave his students an assignment of writing a dissertation about the experiments in his chemistry class .
2. Any formal discourse in speech or writing: Joan had to finalize the preparation of her dissertation about the discrimination of women in some work places, and be able to support and justify it, in front of a group of college students and her professor.
3. A lengthy, formal treatise, especially one written by a candidate for the doctoral degree at a university: Frank was spending a great deal of time on his dissertation in order to earn his Doctor of Philosophy, or PHD, at his educational institution.
4. Etymology: as far back as 1611, from Latin dissertationem, dissertatio, "discourse"; from dissertare "to debate, to argue"; from disserere, "to discuss, to examine"; from dis-, "apart" + serere, "to arrange words".

The sense of "formal, written treatise" is from about 1651.

© ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.