classmate

(klăs'māt')
n.
A member of the same class at school.

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Origin: 1713

From the early days of Harvard College, Americans had been innovative in identifying students by the year of their graduating class. The man who pioneered the use of Alumnus (1696) and Alma Mater (1696), Samuel Sewall, one of eleven members of the Harvard Class of 1671, also recorded the earliest example of classmate in his diary for June 5, 1713: "Charlestown Lecture being over, Col. Phillips came p.m. and found the Nomination over. He had spoken for my Classmate Capt. Saml. Phips to the Governor, that would Nominat him for a justice."

Near the end of his life, on December 22, 1727, Sewall returned from a funeral to reflect, "I have now been at the Interment of 4 of my Class-mates," adding, "Now I can go to no more Funerals of my Class-mates; nor none be at mine; for the survivers...are extremly enfeebled."

In addition to classmate, two other mate words associated with American college life (though first used in other contexts) had their beginnings on this side of the Atlantic. Later in the eighteenth century came roommate in a line in William Dunlap's play The Father, or American Shandyism (1789): "We were room-mates at Halifax."

And in 1915 we find teammate in an American book on tennis. M. E. McLoughlin wrote in Tennis as I Play It: "Service and the net position go together, the initial stroke giving the server the opportunity to reach the net where his team-mate is already stationed."

One other American mate is prominent in politics: running mate. We used it first (1868) in horse racing, to designate a horse that helps the leader by setting the pace for it. Around 1900 running mate began to be applied to another kind of horse race, the political contest.

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For a list of words related to classmate, see:

• Teachers and Students - classmate: member of one’s own class

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See words rhyming with "classmate."

Dansk (Danish)
n. - klassekammerat

Nederlands (Dutch)
klasgenoot

Français (French)
n. - camarade de classe

Deutsch (German)
n. - Klassenkamerad, Mitschüler

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - συμμαθητής

Italiano (Italian)
compagno di classe

Português (Portuguese)
n. - colega (m) (f) de turma

Русский (Russian)
соученик

Español (Spanish)
n. - compañero de clase, condiscípulo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - klasskompis

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
同班同学

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 同班同學

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 급우

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - クラスメート, 同級生

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) رفيق الصف أو الدراسه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חבר לכיתה‬

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