Collegers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Students who are members of a college, especially scholars living and studying within an endowed school or university foundation
2. Pupils or students who board and study at a college as resident members, particularly at certain old English public schools
3. Members of a college who are maintained there as scholars, often on founded places at schools such as Winchester or Eton

Etymology: "Collegers" is the plural of "colleger," a noun for a resident scholar at a college. The base word is "college," and the suffix "-er" is the common English device for forming a noun meaning someone who belongs to or is associated with a thing, as in "lodger" or "villager." Here it marks a person attached to a college in the sense of a student who lives and studies there. The plural form takes its meaning from the same pattern: a "colleger" is one member of a group of such residents, so "collegers" refers to several of them together. Because the word is a plain combination of an existing noun and a suffix, its history is straightforward, and its meaning follows directly from the parts it is built from.

Synonyms: scholar