escuela

Forms

escuela f (plural escuelas)^[1] Old Spanish had escuela and escuella, and the Mozarabic escola in 1192.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin schola (“lesson; school”); the Old Spanish form was already escuela.^[2][5][6][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σχολή (skholḗ, “leisure, free time”), later “study” and “school”.^[2][6][7] Wiktionary derives the Greek noun from the aorist stem of ἔχω (ékhō, “to hold”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *seǵʰ- (“to hold”).^[1]

The same word is Portuguese escola, Catalan escola, Occitan escòla, French école and Italian scuola.^[8][1] Corominas notes that French and Portuguese treat it in a semi-learned way, a sign that the word was used without a break since the Empire but under the influence of the Latin form; the Spanish diphthong ⟨ue⟩ from stressed /ɔ/ is the popular outcome.^[2][9]

In the Cantar de mio Cid the plural escuellas means a lord's following, the troops who fight with him.^[2][8] Latin documents of Spain of the 10th and 11th centuries use schola in the same way.^[2][8] The Latin word already meant a body of troops or the palace guard in the late Empire.^[2][10] Corominas thinks this sense could have grown in Latin, but more probably came from a Germanic word for “troop, division”, the source of Old English scolu (“troop, multitude”) and English shoal.^[2] The ⟨ll⟩ of the Cid's form is unexplained.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the hero says „Quitar quiero Castejón; oíd, escuelas e Minaya” “I want to leave Castejón; hear me, my men and Minaya”, in the sense “retinue”.^[11][4] Corominas gives as first record the form escola in a Mozarabic document of 1192, and escuela in Berceo,^[2][5] who tells of a child who comes „a su escuela” “to his school” early in the morning.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used it for the place of teaching, and in the Cid also for the king's court and a lord's retinue.^[4] A 1243 letter of Ferdinand III orders that there be escuelas in Salamanca,^[11] and the plural long meant the buildings of a university.^[6] Alfonso X's prose already used it for the teachers and pupils of a school.^[12]

Covarrubias described the escuela as the house where children learn to read and write, and also mentioned the dancing school.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the teaching itself and a writer's or philosopher's doctrine (la escuela de Platón).^[14] The Academy's 1884 edition had the literary or artistic school.^[15] In the United States escuela is used after English school for a university faculty, and escuela alta is a calque of high school.^[16][17] The word passed into Tagalog and Cebuano.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy) has escuellas “retinue”.^[11][2]
• 1192 – a Mozarabic document of Toledo has escola.^[2][3]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos has escuela “school”.^[11]
• 1243 – Ferdinand III orders schools in Salamanca.^[11]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses the word.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin ludus and schola.^[18]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, a dancing school in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the schools for reading, writing and dancing.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A public establishment where children receive primary education; a school.^[6][1]
2. Any establishment where some kind of teaching is given: escuela de cocina.^[6]
3. Teaching given or received.^[6]
4. The teachers and pupils of one school.^[6]
5. A teacher's own method or style.^[6]
6. The doctrine and principles of an author or group of authors; their followers.^[6][1]
7. In literature and art, the features shared by the works of a group, period or region: la escuela veneciana.^[6]
8. Something that shapes and enriches experience: la escuela del exilio.^[6]
9. (plural, historical) The buildings of a university.^[6]
10. (climbing) A crag.^[1]

Word family

• escolar
• escolaridad

Related words

• escolástico
• escolio
• Latin schola
• Portuguese escola

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include maestro de escuela “schoolteacher”, already in Cervantes, and de la vieja escuela “old-school”.^[20][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 714
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. escuela
4. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 234
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escuela
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. escuela
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. σχολή
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7703
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escola
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. schola
11. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. escuela
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. escuela
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 775
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 579
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 453
16. ^ Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. 56
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. escuela
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 349
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. escuela
20. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 490