Meaning & use
Grade A
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Meanings
adjectivebefore a noun
Of the highest official quality rating, used especially for food products such as eggs, milk and meat.
Grammar: Before a noun: Grade An eggs; the hyphenated form grade-An is also common.
Patterns
- Grade A eggs
- Grade A quality
The carton shows the eggs are Grade An and were packed this week.
The dairy produces only Grade A milk for sale.
Grade A beef costs more than lower grades.
adjectivebefore a nouninformal
Excellent, first-rate, or complete, used informally to emphasize quality or degree.
Grammar: Informal and flexible: a grade-A performance, also a grade-A mess.
Patterns
- a grade-A performance
- a grade-A idea
Her speech was a grade-A performance from start to finish.
That was a grade-A disaster of a party.
He gave me some grade-An advice.
Common combinations
- Grade A eggs
- Grade An eggs have clean shells and firm whites.
- Grade A milk
- Grade A milk must meet strict health standards.
- Grade A beef
- Grade A beef is sold at premium prices.
- Grade A quality
- The supplier guarantees Grade A quality.
- grade-A mess
- The kitchen was a grade-A mess after the party.
Synonyms and how they differ
- top-quality
- Top-quality is a general description and does not refer to an official rating, unlike Grade A.
- first-rate
- First-rate is slightly old-fashioned and always positive, whereas grade-A can also intensify negative nouns.
- prime
- Prime is another official meat grade and also means best, but it suggests a higher category than Grade An in some systems.
- premium
- Premium suggests a paid-for upgrade or brand, not an official grading.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: Grade A or A-grade?
Grade A vs A-grade
A-grade, mainly British and Australian, is a close variant meaning top quality, while Grade An is the more common form for official food ratings in the United States.
Practice
The supermarket advertised its Grade A eggs as ___.
Choose one answer.
Grade An is the top rating for eggs. The other options describe lower quality or an unrelated way of selling them.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Grade A”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.