English edit

Etymology edit

Mid 17th century. Clipping of univarsity, reflecting an archaic pronunciation of university.[1]

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

varsity (countable and uncountable, plural varsities)

  1. (often attributive) university
  2. (sports, US) The principal sports team representing an institution (usually a high school, college, or university.)
    • 1903, Ralph Henry Barbour, C. M. Relyea, Weatherby's Inning: A Story of College Life and Baseball[1], New York: D. Appleton and Company:
      There were sixteen of them in all, for the most part upper classmen who had failed to make the varsity the year before, with a sprinkling of sophomores and two freshmen.
    • 2019 November 13, Luke Winkie, “Why Colleges Are Betting Big on Video Games”, in The Atlantic[2]:
      A small Pennsylvania university has only one varsity program: e-sports. Is this the future of college athletics?

Usage notes edit

  • Used attributively in the UK to describe a sports team representing a university or college, or a match involving such a team (in normal usage only applying to one of the older universities, and considered somewhat dated even then).
  • Used attributively in the U.S. and Canada to describe a sports team made up of older high school or college students (generally the 3rd and 4th years of a 4-year program), as contrasted with the junior varsity team made up of 1st- and 2nd-year students.
  • Used synonymously to "university" in South Africa.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

References edit