DEGREE

noun Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French degré, from Vulgar Latin *degradus, from Latin de- + gradus Date: 13th century a step or stage in a process, course, or order of classification , 2. a rank or grade of official, ecclesiastical, or social position , a particular standing especially as to dignity or worth, the civil condition or status of a person, a step in a direct line of descent or in the line of ascent to a common ancestor, 4. step , stair , a member of a series arranged in steps, a measure of damage to tissue caused by injury or disease, 6. the extent, measure, or scope of an action, condition, or relation , relative intensity , one of the forms or sets of forms used in the comparison of an adjective or adverb, a legal measure of guilt or negligence , 7. a title conferred on students by a college, university, or professional school on completion of a program of study, a grade of membership attained in a ritualistic order or society, an academic title conferred to honor distinguished achievement or service, the formal ceremonies observed in the conferral of such a distinction, a unit of measure for angles equal to an angle with its vertex at the center of a circle and its sides cutting off 1/360 of the circumference, a position or space on the earth or in the heavens as measured by ~s of latitude, 10. a step, note, or tone of a musical scale, a line or space of the musical staff, one of the divisions or intervals marked on a scale of a measuring instrument, 12. the sum of the exponents of the variables in the term of highest ~ in a polynomial, polynomial function, or polynomial equation, the sum of the exponents of the variable factors of a monomial, the greatest power of the derivative of highest order in a differential equation after the equation has been rationalized and cleared of fractions with respect to the derivative, ~d adjective