1
Core meaning
High respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
Example
The award increased the laboratory's international prestige.
prestige
/preˈstiːʒ/ · preh-STEEZHnoun
High respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
Use prestige to express this relationship precisely: high respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
What prestige Really Means
The word becomes easier to use when its closely related senses are separated and compared.
2
Common noun frame
Use this noun in a complete noun phrase, adding the complement that identifies what it refers to when needed.
Example
The university's prestige rests on decades of scholarship.
3
Analytical distinction
Choose it when this exact concept matters; a related term may describe its cause, evidence, or opposite instead.
Example
Some applicants valued the role's prestige more than its salary.
Use prestige Naturally
Notice how the surrounding noun or clause reveals the exact shade of meaning.
The award increased the laboratory's international prestige.
The university's prestige rests on decades of scholarship.
Some applicants valued the role's prestige more than its salary.
Precision Matters
Prestige overlaps with several common words, but each carries a different emphasis.
prestige
vs.Means high respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
acclaim
Means enthusiastic and public praise.
prestige
vs.Means high respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
adulation
Means excessive admiration, praise, or public devotion directed toward someone.
prestige
vs.Means high respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
censure
Means strong formal criticism or official disapproval.
prestige
vs.Means high respect, admiration, status, or influence gained through achievement, quality, reputation, or association.
ignominious
Means deserving or causing public shame, humiliation, or disgrace.
Test prestige in Context
The institute acquired high standing and respect through achievement.
1
Decades of influential research gave the institute enormous ___ within the scientific community.