Alumnus versus Alumni versus Alumna versus Alumnae
Sometimes it is not the pair of words but the group of words that confuses us. As it a group it is really hard to know and remember the difference between them and hence we end up using the wrong term in wrong sentences. One such group of words is Alumnus, Alumni, Alumna, and Alumnae as these all words literally conveys the same meaning but still it is important to know the difference between all of them.
In this article we are going to see meaning of both all these terms and also we are going to use them in sentences framing.
Use of terms alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnae in sentence framing
Alumnus |
Alumni | Alumna |
Alumnae |
An alumnus is a male graduate of an educational institution.
Use in sentences Sam, an alumnus of the prestigious business school, now runs his own successful company. |
An alumnus is the plural form that can refer to a group of graduates, both male and female, from the same educational institution. So, it encompasses both male and female graduates.
Use in sentences Sam’s university hosted a special event for its alumni, bringing together graduates from various generations to celebrate their shared educational experience. |
An alumna is a female graduate of an educational institution.
Use in sentences Maria Sam’s daughter, an alumna of the engineering program, is now working as a successful civil engineer. |
An alumna is the plural form that specifically refers to a group of female graduates from the same educational institution.
Use in sentences The alumnae of the Sam’s college continue to support and mentor current students, fostering a strong sense of sisterhood and academic achievement. |
Important note
As we have seen the meaning of all the terms and also framed sentences using the entire terms one thing is very clear that though the terms convey the same meaning they still cannot be used interchangeably. Now remembering usage of all the terms can very handy and confusing. To make our work easier it is advised to remember only few terms out of it namely alumni and alumna with their meaning and usage rest terms are not used very often.
After learning the meaning of the term let’s now proceed to learning the correct pronunciation of all these terms.
Alumnus is pronounced as uh-LUHM-nuhs
Alumni is pronounced as uh-LUHM-nai
Alumna is pronounced as uh-LUHM-nuh
Alumnae is pronounced as uh-LUHM-nee
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Summary
To quickly summarize our learning from this article we concluded that all four terms indeed have a same meaning referring to graduates from same institutions but at the same time there are gender and unit connotations with them and they cannot be used alternatively. We also framed different sentences using all the terms and figured out some important terms to remember the difference in the important note section and at last by knowing the correct pronunciation of all the terms.
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