Pupil

How to spell pupil

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pupil

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pupil mean?

1. nounA young person who is taught by a teacher, especially at school.
2. nounThe dark circular opening in the centre of the eye that lets light in.

Pupil in a sentence

• Every pupil in the class handed in the assignment on time.

• In bright sunlight the pupil contracts to a tiny point.

• The music teacher took on a new pupil each autumn.

• The optician shone a light to check how each pupil responded.

Where does pupil come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin pupillus for a boy and pupilla for a girl, both diminutives of pupus 'boy' and pupa 'girl' or 'doll', so the literal sense was 'little one' or 'ward'. In Roman law a pupillus was an orphan or minor placed under a guardian, and from there the word came into Old French as pupille and into English in the late 1300s for a young person under the care of a teacher, which gave us the modern 'school pupil'. The eye sense has the same Latin source but a charming twist: pupilla also meant 'little doll', and the Romans applied it to the dark centre of the eye because anyone looking closely sees a tiny doll-sized reflection of themselves in it. English adopted that anatomical meaning in the 1500s. The single 'p' in the middle and the unstressed 'i' before the final 'l' are the usual spelling traps, since the ending sounds like a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• pup- (from Latin pupus/pupa: boy/girl, also doll)
• -il (diminutive suffix, 'little')