Tutor
nounA person who gives private or individual instruction to a student.
How to spell tutor
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce tutor
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does tutor mean?
- nounA person who gives private or individual instruction to a student.
- verbTo teach or guide a student individually, especially privately.
Tutor in a sentence
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noun
The family hired a maths tutor to help their daughter before exams.
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verb
She earns extra money in the evenings to tutor children in reading.
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noun
His history tutor at university met with him once a week.
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verb
Retired teachers often tutor pupils who are struggling with grammar.
Where does tutor come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes from the Latin tutor, meaning 'guardian' or 'protector', which was formed from the verb tueri, 'to watch over, to guard'. The earliest sense in English was strictly legal and protective: a tutor was a person appointed to look after a minor and that minor's property, much like a modern guardian. English took the word from Anglo-French and Old French in the late 1300s, and only later did it narrow toward the familiar meaning of a private teacher, since the guardian of a young person was naturally the one who oversaw their education. The same tueri root survives in 'tuition' and 'tutelage', both of which still carry the idea of protective oversight. The spelling trap is the ending: it is the Latin agent suffix -or (the one who guards), not the more common English -er, so it is 'tutor', never 'tuter'.
How the word is built
- tut- (from Latin tueri: to watch over, guard)
- -or (agent noun suffix: one who does)
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