Emerita

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A female person who is retired from active service or an occupation, especially one who retains an honorific version of a previous title.

    "And the older women faculty, the emeritae lived around the college and you talked to them and you heard it ... you know, they were just devoted to that place body and soul, and they didn’t care if they made two bent nickels a year, […]"

  2. 2
    plural of emeritum form-of, plural
Adjective
  1. 1
    feminine singular of emeritus (“(often postpositive) retired, but retaining an honorific version of a previous title”) feminine, form-of, singular

Example

More examples

"And the older women faculty, the emeritae lived around the college and you talked to them and you heard it ... you know, they were just devoted to that place body and soul, and they didn’t care if they made two bent nickels a year, […]"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From the Latin ēmerita, the feminine singular form of ēmeritus.

Etymology 2

From the Latin ēmerita, a substantive use of the neuter plural form of ēmeritus.

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