Desmond

//ˈdɛzmənd// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A lower second class honours or 2.2 degree. British, slang
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname from Irish, anglicised from Ó Deasmhumhnaigh, meaning "a man from South Munster".
  2. 2
    A male given name transferred from the surname; popular in Britain in the first half of the twentieth century.

    "I call him Bradford because it makes me feel like I'm in a soap opera. That's what they name men on soap operas. Bradford and Desmond and Elliott and Royce."

Synonyms

All synonyms
drinking man's degreedrinking man's degree

Example

More examples

"He loved, he laughed, he cried, he was forgiven, he forgave: his name is forever Desmond Tutu."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Irish Ó Deasmhumhnaigh.

Etymology 2

From Desmond (“given name”); abbreviation of Desmond Tutu (South African archbishop); from Tutu (“surname”) which sounds like 2.2 (two-two).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.