public school
public school noun: certain private schools, particularly (initially) any grammar school operated apart from the personal lands of its students or (from the 19th century) the feepaying secondary schools which developed from or were modelled upon them; a British boarding school.
Noun
public school (plural public schools)
- Certain private schools, particularly (initially) any grammar school operated apart from the personal lands of its students or (from the 19th century) the feepaying secondary schools which developed from or were modelled upon them; a British boarding school.
- All such School-masters as have charge of Children and do instruct them either in Publick Schools, or Private Houses.1580 June 18, Letters of the Privy Council in John Strype's History of Edmund Grindal (1710), ii.xi.254
- No person shall keepe any schoole... except it be in some publike [public] or free Grammer Schoole, or in some such noblemans... or gentlemans... house as are not recusants.1604, Acts of Parliament 1 under James I, c.4, §8
- Synonyms:
- boarding school, private school
- A publicly funded and administered school; (UK, Ireland) such schools in the context of other countries.
- The Court voted for the erecting a Publick Schooll or Colledge in Cambridge.1636, Harvard College Records, published 1925, I.171
- The Governor and Provincial Council shall erect and order all public Schooles.1683, Pennsylvania Frame of Government, §10
- Synonyms:
- comprehensive school, free school, state school
- A college or university.
- Thither [to Douai] he went, where after a yeres great diligence and many excercises done booth in house and publike scholes, he proceded bachilier of diuinitie [bachelor of divinity].1582, W. Allen, Briefe Hist. Glorious Martyrdom, sig. d3
- ante 1593, Christopher Marlowe, Tragicall Hist. Faustus (1604), sig. A3v
Ile haue them fill the publike schooles with skill. Wherewith the students shal be brauely clad.
public school meaning in Tamil, Kannada, Tagalog and Malay
public school in Tamil
- அரசுப் பள்ளி
public school in Kannada
- ಸರ್ಕಾರಿ ಶಾಲೆ, ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಶಾಲೆ
public school in Tagalog
- publicly administered school
- paaralang bayan, paaralang publiko, pampublikong paaralan
public school in Malay
- publicly administered school
- sekolah kebangsaan
More languagesFewer languages
- public school in Indonesian
- sekolah negeri
Examples of public school in a sentence
- This worthy Man having observed the imperfect Institution of our public Schools, and the many Vices which Boys were there liable to learn, had resolved to educate his Nephew... in his own House.1749, Henry Fielding, chapter V, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume I, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book III, page...
- It turned out she was posh, or posh-ish, having been to a public school somewhere in Hampshire.2005, Nick Laird, Utterly Monkey, section 223:
- A subscription... by a great part of the settlers and others to build a Public School at the Green Hills.1804 August 12, Sydney Gazette, section 1:
- Hardly anywhere in France... can the private boys' schools, whether they be lay or congreganist, hold their own in the competition with the public schools.1861, Matthew Arnold, The Popular Education of France, with Notices of that of Holland and Switzerland, x.105:
Synonyms of public school
Forms of public school
| plural | public schools |
|---|---|
| alternative form | public-school |
Origin of public school
From public + school: originally, “public” in the sense of "communal" and contrasted with personal tutors; later, "state-run" and contrasted with private schools.
Questions about public school
- What does public school mean?
- Public school means certain private schools, particularly (initially) any grammar school operated apart from the personal lands of its students or (from the 19th century) the feepaying secondary schools which developed from or were modelled upon them; a British boarding school.
- What is public school in Tamil?
- Public school in Tamil is அரசுப் பள்ளி. See Public school meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use public school in a sentence?
- This worthy Man having observed the imperfect Institution of our public Schools, and the many Vices which Boys were there liable to learn, had resolved to educate his Nephew... in his own House.
- What part of speech is public school?
- Public school is a noun.
- What is the plural of public school?
- The plural of public school is public schools.
Words near public school in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: public school (page history and authors); public school (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); public school (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-public school.ogg.
Cite this entry: “public school.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/public_school. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.