Instructor

How to spell instructor

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce instructor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does instructor mean?

1. nounA person who teaches a skill or subject, especially a practical one.

Instructor in a sentence

• The driving instructor explained how to perform a hill start.

• Each new instructor at the gym must hold a first aid certificate.

Where does instructor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb instruere, which literally meant 'to build into' or 'to set in order', formed from the prefix in- ('upon, into') and struere ('to pile up, build, arrange'). From the idea of arranging and equipping came the figurative sense of furnishing the mind with knowledge, so to instruct someone was originally to 'build them up' with learning. The agent noun instructor, 'one who instructs', was formed in Late Latin and passed into English in the fifteenth century. The same struere root quietly sits inside a whole family of English words, including structure, construct, destroy and obstruct, all of which share the notion of building or arranging. Knowing that the core is struct (with its -or agent ending) is a useful guard against the common error of writing the ending as -er, since this word keeps the Latin -or.

How the word is built

• in- (upon, into)
• struct (from struere: to build, arrange)
• -or (agent suffix: one who does)