Sophomore - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sophomore is a term used in the United States to describe a student in the second year of study at high school or university.
The word is also used as a synonym

Synonym

Synonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...

for "second", for the second album or EP released by a musician or group, the second movie of a director, or the second season of a professional athlete.

Etymology

The term comes from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

(), “acquired skill, clever device, method” in turn from "σοφίζω" (sophizo), "to become wise, to instruct", and the original English spelling was Sophumer.
Sophumer is similar to the present participle sophuming, which was formed upon sophum. Sophum is an obsolete variant of sophism, which eventually came from the Greek

Greek language

σοφός (sophos), meaning "wise, skilled, clever" (see Σοφία). Sophomore, as an English word, was established in the seventeenth century.
It was not until 1726 that the spelling was established in United States as sophomore. Another theory argues that the term sophomore is probably a compound of the Greek σοφός (sophos), "wise" + μωρός (moros), "foolish, dull".

High school

The 10th grade is the second year of a student's high school period and is referred to as sophomore year. High school sophomores are expected to begin preparing for the college application process, including increasing and focusing their extracurricular activities. Students at this level are also considered to be developing greater ability for abstract thinking.

College

In the U.S., colleges generally require students to declare an academic major

Academic major

In the United States and Canada, an academic major or major concentration is the academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits....

by the end of their sophomore year. College sophomores are advised to begin thinking about career options and to get involved in volunteering or social organizations on or near campus.

Usage in other countries

In some other countries, such as the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, sophomore is also widely used specifically in high schools. It is also used in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

in English-based universities and colleges.

Etymology

High school

College

Usage in other countries

See also