Academy

How to spell academy

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce academy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does academy mean?

1. nounA school, college, or society devoted to specialised training, learning, or the arts.

Academy in a sentence

• She enrolled at a military academy after leaving school.

• The local football academy develops young players for the senior squad.

Where does academy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek Akademeia, the name of a grove and gymnasium just outside ancient Athens where the philosopher Plato established his school around 387 BC. The site itself was named after Akademos, a legendary Athenian hero whose sacred garden once stood there, so the modern word literally carries the memory of one man's plot of land. Because Plato taught there for decades, the place name came to mean the school of thought he founded, and then any community of scholars. Latin took it as academia and French reshaped it as academie, from which English borrowed it in the early 1500s. The single c is worth remembering: although the word feels like it should match harder-looking borrowings, it keeps just one c throughout, reflecting the single kappa of the original Greek.

How the word is built

• academ- (from Greek Akademeia, the grove where Plato taught)
• -y (noun suffix)