emerita

E1M3E1R1I1T1A1

noun

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

UncommonScrabble 9

Meanings

emerita1

adjectiveemerita (plural emeritae)

plural emeritae

  1. femininesingularfeminine singular of emeritus (“(often postpositive) retired, but retaining an honorific version of a previous title”)
nounemerita (plural emeritae, masculine singular emeritus)

plural emeritae · masculine singular emeritus

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

    With the help of ever-present chief elder Charlotte McGuire and our headquarters, an updated list of all Board members was developed. Twenty-eight persons who are now emeritae were named.

    1991, American Holistic Nurses' Association, Beginnings, page 3
    3 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, […]

    1988, Nadya Aisenberg, Mona Harrington, Women of Academe: Outsiders in the Sacred Grove, University of Massachusetts Press, →ISBN, page 187

    In 1939, when I arrived, women made up a slight majority of the Smith faculty. The oldest of the emeritae were such relics as Elizabeth Hanscomb, who had taught one of the first American literature courses in the country some time in the 1890s.

    2007, Daniel Aaron, The Americanist, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 69

    Although by no means a card-carrying feminist—and who was in those days, besides some shapeless, tweedy, old left-over suffragettes among the emeritae?—I knew from that time onward that I was not going to be one of those model domestic women.

    2008, Linda Nochlin, A Life of Learning, pages 15–16

emerita2

noun
  1. pluralplural of emeritum

Origin

emerita · adjective, noun

  1. Latinēmerita
  2. Englishemerita

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

Full word history & related roots →

emerita · noun

  1. Latinēmerita
  2. Englishemerita

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

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Finnish emerita
  • emeritaretired female person, especially one who retains an honorific version of a previous title
Swedish emerita
  • emeritaretired female person, especially one who retains an honorific version of a previous title

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

emerita. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emerita

MLA

“emerita.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emerita. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “emerita,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/emerita.

Source: emerita on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.