doktorska

Doktorska is an adjective form used in several South Slavic languages, such as Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian, to indicate a relation to a doctoral degree or to a person who holds such a degree. It is the feminine form of the related adjective doktorski and is used with feminine nouns, while doktorski and doktorsko are the masculine and neuter forms, respectively. The base noun doktor denotes a doctor in a professional sense or a person who has earned a doctoral degree in an academic field.

In academic contexts, doktorska appears most often in phrases describing doctoral-level work or status. Common examples include doktorska disertacija (doctoral dissertation), doktorska tema (doctoral topic), doktorska studija or doktorski studij (doctoral studies), and doktorska diploma (doctoral diploma). The term helps distinguish materials, programs, or achievements tied to the highest level of university education from those at other levels.

Usage notes: doktorska is primarily a modifier and does not itself denote a specific degree. The term is commonly paired with nouns referring to studies, research, or credentials, and it can describe both programs and scholarly outputs. In everyday language, the broader concept of “doktorat” or “doktoratni studij” may be used to refer to the doctoral degree as a whole, while doktorska remains the descriptive form.

Etymology: doktorska derives from doktor, borrowed from Latin doctor, with Slavic adjectival suffixes added. It reflects the linguistic tradition of denoting scholarly status through inflected forms that agree with gender and number of the modified noun.