Classroom

How to spell classroom

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce classroom

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does classroom mean?

1. nounA room in a school or college in which a class of students is taught.

Classroom in a sentence

• The teacher arranged the desks in the classroom before the lesson began.

• Every classroom in the building has a projector and a whiteboard.

Where does classroom come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound of two everyday English words, 'class' and 'room', joined to name the place where a class is taught. 'Class' came into English in the 1600s from the Latin 'classis', a word that originally divided the Roman population into ranks for taxation and military service, later broadening into any group sharing a common feature. 'Room' is the older, native part, descending from the Old English 'rum', which simply meant space or extent and is related to the German 'Raum'. The two were welded together as a single compound only in the 19th century, as formal schooling spread and a dedicated word for the teaching space became useful. Because both halves are familiar, the only real spelling question is remembering that they fuse into one word with a doubled 's' meeting the 'r'.

How the word is built

• class (a group of students taught together)
• room (an interior space)