Educational

How to spell educational

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce educational

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does educational mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to education, or intended to teach or develop knowledge and skills.

Educational in a sentence

• The museum offers a range of educational programmes for visiting schools.

• Watching that documentary was a genuinely educational experience for the whole family.

Where does educational come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adjective is built on the noun 'education', which English took from the Latin educatio, meaning 'a bringing up' or 'a rearing'. That noun grew from the verb educare, 'to bring up, train, or rear', a word closely tied to educere, literally 'to lead out', from ex- 'out' and ducere 'to lead'. The image at the root is of drawing a person out toward their full development, the same ducere that gives us 'conduct', 'produce', and 'duke'. English adopted 'education' in the 1500s and added the Latin-style suffix -al to form 'educational' by the early nineteenth century, when formal schooling was becoming a widespread public concern. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the '-cation-' is easy to slur, and writers must remember the single 'c' and the '-al' tail rather than '-le'.

How the word is built

• e- (from ex-: out)
• duc (from ducere: to lead)
• -ation (noun-forming)
• -al (adjective suffix)