doctorate vs academic degree

doctorate and academic degree both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
doctorate	Yes	No	No	No
academic degree	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, academic degree is a hypernym of doctorate; that is, academic degree is a word with a broader meaning than doctorate:

doctorate: one of the highest earned academic degrees conferred by a university
academic degree: an award conferred by a college or university signifying that the recipient has satisfactorily completed a course of study

Other hypernyms of doctorate include degree.

doctorate (noun)	academic degree (noun)
one of the highest earned academic degrees conferred by a university	an award conferred by a college or university signifying that the recipient has satisfactorily completed a course of study