Skool

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. An informal phonetic spelling of school, referring to an institution where children and young people are taught
2. A nonstandard spelling for an establishment where pupils receive lessons from teachers in a set curriculum
3. An alternative informal form of the word meaning a place of formal education for learners of various ages

Etymology: "Skool" is a deliberate misspelling of "school", and its respelling works because the spelling of the original is itself a historical accident. "School" descends from Ancient Greek "skholē", which meant "spare time" or "leisure", the idea being that learning was what people did when they were free from work. The Greek word passed into Late Latin as "schola", meaning a learned discussion or lecture, and reached Old English as "scōl", a place of education. The same English word has a second, unrelated-looking family. Middle English "scole" also meant a group of people, a troop, or a school of fish, borrowed from Middle Dutch "scole", and it is the source of the "school" in "school of fish". The two senses merged in English, and the Dutch sense is also the origin of "shoal", a doublet of this word. The sense of "school" as an educational institution and the sense of a crowd of fish turn out to come from different roots that happened to converge on one spelling.