Schoolday

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A day when pupils attend classes at their school, typically a weekday during the academic term
2. Any date on which students are expected to be present at school for lessons and instruction
3. The weekday hours spent in classes during the academic year, when children go to their place of learning

Etymology: "Schoolday" is a plain compound of "school" and "day," with no hidden history behind it. "School" came into English from Old English "scol," which was itself borrowed from Latin "schola," a word that originally meant leisure or a place for discussion, and the Greek "skholē" it descends from had the same sense of spare time. "Day" is an older native English word, rooted in Old English "dæg." Put together, the compound describes a day spent at school, the sort of day a child knows well from its routine of lessons, lunch and the bell. The two elements keep their original meanings, so the word needs no reinterpretation: it simply joins a place of learning to a unit of time.