pupils

/pjuːpəlz/

pupils is the plural of pupil.

Meaning of pupil

pupil (plural pupils)

(dated outside UK) A learner at a school under the supervision of a teacher.
- The Pupil after his Pupillarity, had granted a Diſcharge to one of the Co-tutors, which did extinguiſh the whole Debt of that Co-tutor, and conſequently of all the reſt, they being all correi debendi, lyable by one individual Obligation, which cannot be Diſcharged as to one, and ſtand as to all the...1668 December 19, James Dalrymple, “Mr. Alexander Seaton contra Menzies” in The Deciſions of the Lords of Council & Seſſion I (Edinburgh, 1683), page 575
One who studies under supervision of a renowned expert in their field.
- Plato was Socrates' pupil, and in turn Aristotle was Plato's pupil.
(obsolete) An orphan who is a minor and under the protection of the state.

pupil (plural pupils)

The hole in the middle of the iris of the eye, through which light passes to be focused on the retina.
- There are sharks with round pupils, sharks with slitlike pupils, and some with pupils that expand and contract with the amount of light available. As unimpressive as this might sound to people who are used to having their pupils dilate and contract regularly, realize that no bony fish has this...1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 29
The central dark part of an ocellated spot.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pupils (page history and authors); pupil (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pupils.ogg.

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