School Comes From the Greek Word for Leisure
A school is a place for teaching. The Greek original meant free time, and the school of fish is a completely different word.
A school is a place where people are taught. The Greek *skhole* meant leisure — spare time, and then what a free citizen chose to do with it, which was discussion and study. Education was defined as the opposite of work. English also has a second, unrelated *school*: the one fish swim in, borrowed from Dutch and meaning a crowd.
- A place of education. *Primary school.*
- A university faculty. *The school of medicine.*
- A group of thinkers or artists. *The Frankfurt School.*
- A group of fish (separate word). *A school of herring.*
- Verb, to train. *Schooled in argument.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | school | A village school. |
| Plural | schools | Local schools. |
| Verb | school | He schooled himself. |
| Adjective | scholastic | Scholastic ability. |
| Related | scholar | A visiting scholar. |
- She left school at sixteen.British: no article.
- A school of dolphins crossed the bow.The Dutch word.
- He belongs to the older school of thought.A group of views.
Two words spelled school
- Teaching school — Greek *skhole*, leisure, through Latin *schola*
- Fish school — Middle Dutch *schole*, a crowd or troop
- Same spelling, no relation — the resemblance is coincidence
- Shoal — a doublet of the fish word, from the same Dutch source
- Scholar, scholastic, scholarship — all from the Greek side only
Old English *scol*, from Latin *schola*, from Greek *skhole*, leisure. The fish sense came separately from Middle Dutch *schole* in the 1400s.
Why does school mean leisure in Greek?
Because study was what free citizens did with time not spent on labour. The word for the free time became the word for the study, and then for the place.
Is a school of fish the same word?
No. That one comes from Dutch and means a crowd. It is a coincidence of spelling.