Meaning
A student, chiefly in the US grading system, who receives the letter grade A - the highest mark - in every subject, or does so consistently. 'Straight' here means in an unbroken row, as in four straight wins, so the record is an unbroken run of A's. The phrase is often extended to anyone consistently excellent, and is written both hyphenated (straight-A student) and open (straight A student). Hyphenation varies: straight-A student is the usual attributive form; the open form straight A student is also attested and is the form in Wiktionary's example. The phrase has little currency where letter grades are not used, as with UK percentage or degree-class marking. Wiktionary has no dedicated entry for the full phrase; coverage sits under the adjective straight A and the noun straight A's. Regional use: Chiefly United States; also understood wherever US-style letter grades are used.
Origin
The expression presupposes letter grades, which are recent. Wikipedia's Grading in education records that the first documented grading scale in American higher education was at Yale in 1785, when Ezra Stiles ranked seniors in four bands, and that the A-D/F system was first adopted by Mount Holyoke College in 1897 - not the A-E scale often claimed - becoming widespread only in the 1940s and still used by just 67 per cent of US primary and secondary schools in 1971. Once A meant top marks, English compounded it: the OED dates straight A to 1909, its earliest evidence being Phi Beta Pi Quarterly. Wiktionary defines the adjective as pertaining to one who makes straight A's, with the example 'a straight A student', and its noun straight A's as grades or marks that are consistently A's; its citations include Billy Joel's 1980 song 'It's Still Rock and Roll to Me' ('Should I try to be a straight A student?').
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- straight A's
- straight-A average
Usage Examples
- A straight-A student with a shelf of trophies, she still froze the first time a problem had no textbook answer.
- He was a straight-A student in everything except gym, which he blamed entirely on the mile run.
- The scholarship went to a straight-A student who also worked weekends at his family's restaurant.