Schoolboy

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈskulˌbɔɪ/

Definitions

1. A male child who attends school, typically during his years of primary or secondary education
2. A young male student who is enrolled in an educational institution, particularly at the primary or secondary level
3. A boy who participates in formal learning and academic activities in a school setting

Etymology: "Schoolboy" is about as transparent as compounds get: it simply joins "school" and "boy," so a schoolboy is literally a boy of or from school. The "school" element comes from Old English "scōl," borrowed early from Latin "schola," which itself came from Greek "scholē," meaning leisure. The idea behind the Greek sense was that learning was what free people did with their spare time, not a chore for the working day. The compound itself is plain and unmysterious. Its parts have been recorded in English for centuries, and the combination follows the same pattern as words like "schoolgirl" and "schoolmaster," where a noun modifies the institution it belongs to. The meaning has stayed close to its literal sense throughout, so there is little semantic drift to trace.

Synonyms: pupil, student, learner

Antonyms: teacher, instructor