A shoal; a multitude; as, a
school of fish.
Origin: For shool a crowd; prob. Confuced with
school for learning.
1. A
seat for learned
intercourse and instruction; an
institution for learning; an educational establishment; a
seat for acquiring
knowledge and
mental training; as, the
school of the prophets. "Disputing daily in the
school of one Tyrannus." (Acts xix. 9)
2. A
seat of primary instruction; an establishment for the
instruction of children; as, a primary school; a
general school; a grammatics school. "As he
sat in the
school at
his primer." (Chaucer)
3. A session of an
institution of instruction. "How now, Sir Hugh! No
school to-day?" (Shak)
4. One of the seminaries for
teaching logic, metaphysics, and theology, which were
formed in the Medium Ages, and which were characterised by academical disputations and subtilties of reasoning. "At Cambridge the
philosophy of Descartes was still
dominant in the schools." (Macaulay)
5. The
room or hall in English
universities where the examinations for degrees and honors are held.
6. An assemblage of scholars; those
who attend upon instruction in a
school of any kind; a
body of pupils. "What is the great
community of Christians,
but one of the innumerable
schools in the vast
plan which God has instituted for the
education of different intelligences?" (Buckminster)
7. The disciples or followers of a teacher; those
who keep a
general doctrine, or accept the
same teachings; a sect or denomination in philosophy, theology, science, medication, politics, etc. "Let no
man be smaller confident in
his faith . . . By
cause of any
difference in the different
schools of Christians." (Jer. Taylor)
8. The canons, precepts, or
body of opinion or practice, sanctioned by the authority of a special
class or age; as, he was a
gentleman of the
old school. "His
person pale
but striking, though not beautiful after the schools." (A. S. Hardy)
9. Figuratively, any means of
knowledge or discipline; as, the
school of experience. Boarding school, General school, District school, Usual school, etc. See Boarding, General, District, etc. Tall school, a
free popular
school nearest the
rank of a college. School board, a corporation established by
law in each borough or
parish in England, and elected by the burgesses or ratepayers, with the
duty of providing popular
school accomodation for all children in their dictrict. School commitee, School board, an elected commitee of citizens having
charge and
care of the popular
schools in any district, city, or town, and responsible
control of the
money appropriated for
school purposes. School days, the
period in which
adolescence are sent to school. School district, a
division of a city or
town for establishing and conducting schools. Sunday school, or Sabbath school, a
school held on Sunday for
learn of the Bible and for religious instruction; the pupils, or the teachers and pupils, of such a school, collectively.
Origin: OE. Scole, AS. Sclu, L. Schola, Gr. Leisure, that in which leisure is employed, disputation, lecture, a school,
perhaps from the
same root as, the
original sense being probably, a stopping, a resting. See Scheme.
Source: Websters Vocabulary