Word.ws English Dictionary

school refusal

school refusal noun: the refusal of children or teens to go to school because of some sort of emotional distress. This can be caused by separation or social anxiety disorders, depression, or a phobia.

Noun

school refusal (countable and uncountable, plural school refusals)

  1. The refusal of children or teens to go to school because of some sort of emotional distress. This can be caused by separation or social anxiety disorders, depression, or a phobia.
    Synonyms:
    school phobia

Synonyms of school refusal

  • school phobia

Forms of school refusal

pluralschool refusals

Questions about school refusal

What does school refusal mean?
School refusal means the refusal of children or teens to go to school because of some sort of emotional distress. This can be caused by separation or social anxiety disorders, depression, or a phobia.
What part of speech is school refusal?
School refusal is a noun.
What is the plural of school refusal?
The plural of school refusal is school refusals.

Words near school refusal in the dictionary

  1. school pence
  2. school port
  3. school ports
  4. school psychologist
  5. school psychologists
  6. school refusal
  7. school refusals
  8. school resource officer
  9. school resource officers
  10. school run
  11. school runs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: school refusal (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: “school refusal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/school_refusal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.