Word.ws English Dictionary

prep school

US/ˈpɹɛpˌskuːl/

prep school is the clipping of preparatory school.

Meaning of preparatory school

Noun

preparatory school (plural preparatory schools)

  1. (US) A private or public school intended to prepare its students to gain admission into prestigious universities.
  2. (UK) A private primary school which prepares its pupils for the common entrance examination most commonly at the age of thirteen, and subsequent entry into public school.
    Synonyms:
    prepper

Forms of prep school

pluralprep schools

Origin of prep school

Clipped compound of preparatory school.

Words formed from prep school

Questions about prep school

What is prep school the clipping of?
Prep school is the clipping of preparatory school.
How do you pronounce prep school?
Prep school is pronounced /ˈpɹɛpˌskuːl/ (US).

Words near prep school in the dictionary

  1. prep cooks
  2. prep out
  3. prep pad
  4. prep room
  5. prep rooms
  6. prep school
  7. prep schools
  8. prep up
  9. prep.
  10. prepack
  11. prepackage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prep school (page history and authors); preparatory school (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “prep school.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prep_school. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.