SCHOOL, n. [L. schola; Gr. leisure, vacation from business, lucubration at leisure, a place where leisure is enjoyed, a school. The adverb signifies at ease, leisurely, slowly, hardly, with labor or difficulty. I think, must have been derived from the Latin. This word seems originally to have denoted leisure, freedom from business, a time given to sports, games or exercises, and afterwards time given to literary studies. the sense of a crowd, collection or shoal, seems to be derivative.]

1. A place or house in which persons are instructed in arts, science, languages, or any species of learning; or the pupils assembled for instruction. In American usage, school more generally denotes the collective body of pupils in any place of instruction, and under the direction and discipline of one or more teachers. Thus we say, a school consists of fifty pupils. The preceptor has a large school, or a small school. His discipline keeps the school well regulated and quiet.
2. The instruction or exercises of a collection of pupils or; students, or the collective body of pupils while engaged in their studies. Thus we say, the school begins or opens at eight o'clock, that is, the pupils at that hour begin their studies. So we say, the teacher is now in school, the school hours are from nine to twelve, and from two to five.
3. The state of instruction. Set him betimes to school. – Dryden.
4. A place of education, or collection of pupils, of any kind; as, the school of the prophets. In modern usage, the word school comprehends every place of education, as university, college, academy, common or primary schools, dancing-schools, riding-schools, &c.; but ordinarily the word is applied to seminaries inferior to universities and colleges. What is the great community of Christians, but one of the innumerable schools in the vast plan, which God has instituted for the education of various intelligences. – Buckminster.
5. Separate denomination or sect; or a system of doctrine taught by particular teachers, or peculiar to any denomination of Christians or philosophers. Let no man be less confident in his faith … by reason of any difference in the several schools of Christians. – Taylor. Thus we say, the Socratic school, the Platonic school, the Peripatetic or Ionic school; by which we understand all those who adopted and adhered to a particular system of opinions.
6. The seminaries for teaching logic, metaphysics, and theology, which were formed in the middle ages, and which were characterized by academical disputations and subtilties of reasoning; or the learned men who were engaged in discussing nice points in metaphysics or theology. The supreme authority of Aristotle in the schools of theology as well as of philosophy. – Henry. Hence, school divinity is the divinity which discusses nice points, and proves every thing by argument.
7. Any place of improvement or learning. The world is an excellent school to wise men, but a school of vice to fools. Primary school, a school for instructing children in the first rudiments of language and literature; called also common school, because ii is open to the children of all the inhabitants in a town or district.

1. To instruct; to train; to educate. He's gentle, never school'd, yet learn'd. – Shak.
2. To teach with superiority; to tutor; to chide and admonish; to reprove. School your child, / And ask why God's anointed he revil'd. – Dryden.

1. A shoal; a multitude; as, a school of fish.
2. A place for learned intercourse and instruction; an institution for learning; an educational establishment; a place for acquiring knowledge and mental training; as, the school of the prophets.
   
   

   Disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. Acts xix. 9.

3. To train in an institution of learning] to educate at a school; to teach.
   
   

   He's gentle, never schooled, and yet learned. Shak.

4. A place of primary instruction; an establishment for the instruction of children; as, a primary school; a common school; a grammar school.
   
   

   As he sat in the school at his primer. Chaucer.

5. To tutor; to chide and admonish; to reprove; to subject to systematic discipline; to train.
   
   

   It now remains for you to school your child,
   And ask why God's Anointed be reviled. Dryden.

   The mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze. Hawthorne.

6. A session of an institution of instruction.
   
   

   How now, Sir Hugh! No school to- day? Shak.

7. One of the seminaries for teaching logic, metaphysics, and theology, which were formed in the Middle Ages, and which were characterized by academical disputations and subtilties of reasoning.
   
   

   At Cambridge the philosophy of Descartes was still dominant in the schools. Macaulay.

8. The room or hall in English universities where the examinations for degrees and honors are held.
9. An assemblage of scholars; those who attend upon instruction in a school of any kind; a body of pupils.
   
   

   What is the great community of Christians, but one of the innumerable schools in the vast plan which God has instituted for the education of various intelligences? Buckminster.

10. The disciples or followers of a teacher; those who hold a common doctrine, or accept the same teachings; a sect or denomination in philosophy, theology, science, medicine, politics, etc.
    
    

    Let no man be less confident in his faith . . . by reason of any difference in the several schools of Christians. Jer. Taylor.

11. The canons, precepts, or body of opinion or practice, sanctioned by the authority of a particular class or age; as, he was a gentleman of the old school.
    
    

    His face pale but striking, though not handsome after the schools. A. S. Hardy.

12. Figuratively, any means of knowledge or discipline; as, the school of experience.
    
    

    Boarding school, Common school, District school, Normal school, etc. See under Boarding, Common, District, etc. -- High school, a free public school nearest the rank of a college. [U. S.] -- School board, a corporation established by law in every borough or parish in England, and elected by the burgesses or ratepayers, with the duty of providing public school accommodation for all children in their district. -- School committee, School board, an elected committee of citizens having charge and care of the public schools in any district, town, or city, and responsible for control of the money appropriated for school purposes. [U. S.] -- School days, the period in which youth are sent to school. -- School district, a division of a town or city for establishing and conducting schools. [U.S.] -- Sunday school, or Sabbath school, a school held on Sunday for study of the Bible and for religious instruction; the pupils, or the teachers and pupils, of such a school, collectively.