Scholastic

How to spell scholastic

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce scholastic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scholastic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to schools, education, or academic study and achievement.
2. adjectiveRelating to scholasticism, the medieval system of philosophy and theology taught in the schools.

Scholastic in a sentence

• Her scholastic record earned her a place at a top university.

• The lecture traced the scholastic debates of the thirteenth century.

• The college prides itself on its high scholastic standards.

• Aquinas remains the most famous scholastic thinker.

Where does scholastic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek skholē, which originally meant 'leisure' or 'free time', the very thing a person needed in order to sit and discuss ideas. From that came skholastikos, meaning 'devoting one's leisure to learning' and so 'studious' or 'learned'. Latin borrowed it as scholasticus, applied to teachers, rhetoricians and the scholars who staffed schools. English took it in during the 1500s, partly through French, to describe anything connected with schools, study and academic method. The same skholē root sits inside the everyday word 'school', which explains the unexpected 'sch' opening and the silent-feeling 'ch' pronounced as a hard 'k'; remembering 'school' is the easiest way to fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• schol- (Greek skholē: leisure, then a place of learning)
• -ast-
• -ic (adjective-forming suffix)