Teaches

How to spell teaches

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce teaches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does teaches mean?

1. verbGives instruction in a subject or skill to a person or group.

Teaches in a sentence

• She teaches history at the local secondary school.

• The online course teaches beginners how to manage a budget.

Where does teaches come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the third person singular form of the verb 'teach', which descends from the Old English tǣcan, meaning 'to show, to point out, or to instruct'. That root is closely tied to tācen, the Old English word for a 'sign' or 'token', so the original sense was literally to make something known by showing a sign of it. The verb belongs to the broad Germanic family of words about pointing and showing, and it is a distant relative of 'token' and of the modern German 'zeigen', meaning 'to show'. Over the centuries the irregular past tense settled as 'taught', while the present third person simply added the regular -es ending to give 'teaches'. The spelling keeps the soft 'ch' that the Old English 'c' developed into, which is why the word ends in the familiar -ches rather than anything more exotic.

How the word is built

• teach (from Old English tǣcan: to show, instruct)
• -es (third person singular present tense)