Marymount University is a Catholic university with its main campus in Arlington, Virginia. Marymount offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in a wide range of disciplines. It has approximately 3,375 students enrolled, representing approximately 44 states and 76 countries.

Marymount was founded in 1950 by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary (RSHM) as Marymount College, a two-year women's school. It was a member school of the Marymount colleges operated by the sisterhood in New York, California and several other states. The campus was located on the former estate of Admiral Presley Marion Rixey, Naval Surgeon General and personal physician to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William McKinley. Classes and activities were centered around the former Rixey Mansion, renamed as the university's "Main House".

Marymount became a four-year college in 1973. It added master's degree programs in 1979, and its first doctoral program, the clinical Doctor of Physical Therapy, in 2005. Its first male students were admitted into the nursing program in 1972, and the college became fully coeducational and changed its name to Marymount University in 1986.