freshman fifteen

English

Alternative forms

• freshman 15

Etymology

From freshman +‎ fifteen.

Noun

freshman fifteen

1. (colloquial, US, Canada) The amount of body weight (thought to be 15 pounds) gained by a student during their first year of college.
   • 1997, Tali Edut, with Dyann Logwood and Ophira Edut, “HUES Magazine: The Making of a Movement”, in Leslie Heywood, Jennifer Drake, editors, Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 85:

     I gained the dreaded "freshman fifteen," whereas Ophi became unnaturally thin from eating too little.

   • 1999 August 4, Alice Sebold, Lucky, New York: Scribner, →ISBN, →OL, page 37:

     Having gained the regulation freshman fifteen meant that my skirt that day fit.

   • 2012 August 9, Tiana Kupinski, “Getting mean on the Freshman 15”, Sun Belt Collegiate, in Explorer‎^[1]:

     The freshman fifteen is the stuff of urban legend — a horror story that wreaks havoc on the psyches of high school seniors everywhere, for fear that it too might touch their lives, leaving them crying in the Sears dressing room shopping for pants two sizes larger.

Synonyms

• (Australia, New Zealand) fresher five, fresher spread