From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsemesterse‧mes‧ter /səˈmestə $ -ər/ ●●● S2 noun [countable] SESSECone of the two periods of time that a year at high schools and universities is divided into, especially in the US the fall semester → term1(5), quarter1(8)
Examples from the Corpus
semester• The report recommended that each midshipman and cadet spend a semester at another service academy.• What a semester it was going to be!• Students take a sequence of two or three specialized courses together each semester.• By the time the fall semester began, Helen had found a new, larger place, in Washington Heights.• Scotch and Bubba excelled in their fall semester.• Fall semester starts the 28th of August.• Both were involved in high-profile incidents last semester that heightened racial tensions on campus.• Changes in the academic year are also envisaged, with extra students being accommodated in a series of semesters.• He attended Bennington College for three semesters.• Two classes of students at George Washington University over two semesters worked with the database and augmented the semantic net on-line.Origin semester (1800-1900) German Latin semestris “half-yearly”, from sex “six” + mensis “month” 