university
noun
uni·ver·si·ty
ˌyü-nə-ˈvər-sə-tē 
-ˈvər-stē
plural universities
1
: an institution of higher learning providing facilities for teaching and research and authorized to grant academic degrees
specifically
: one made up of an undergraduate division which confers bachelor's degrees and a graduate division which comprises a graduate school and professional schools each of which may confer master's degrees and doctorates
2
: the physical plant of a university
Examples of university in a Sentence
I applied to several public universities.
He lives near the university.
Recent Examples on the Web
And the idea of combining gasoline with battery propulsion sounded more like a university engineering experiment than a mainstream vehicle.
—
Sponsored Content, Denver Post, 4 Apr. 2026
Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory & Computation at Harvard and head of the university's Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts, believes in the likely existence of extraterrestrials.
—ABC News, 4 Apr. 2026
Public universities make important business decisions each day that can change the fate of an athletics department or an academic program.
—Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 3 Apr. 2026
John Preskill, a senior theoretical physicist at the university with a long history in the field of quantum error correction, advised the group.
—Quanta Magazine, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for university
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Sponsored Content, Denver Post, 4 Apr. 2026
Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory & Computation at Harvard and head of the university's Galileo Project for the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts, believes in the likely existence of extraterrestrials.
—ABC News, 4 Apr. 2026
Public universities make important business decisions each day that can change the fate of an athletics department or an academic program.
—Michael McCann, Sportico.com, 3 Apr. 2026
John Preskill, a senior theoretical physicist at the university with a long history in the field of quantum error correction, advised the group.
—Quanta Magazine, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for university
Cite this Entry
“University.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/university. Accessed 6 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
university
noun
uni·ver·si·ty
ˌyü-nə-ˈvər-sət-ē
-ˈvər-stē
plural universities
: a school that offers courses leading to a degree (as a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree) and where research is done
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
