Word.ws English Dictionary

schoolman

schoolman noun: a medieval writer, scholar or teacher of the subjects taught at early European universities (such as theology, metaphysics and logic); a scholastic.

Noun (1)

schoolman (plural schoolmen)

  1. (historical) A medieval writer, scholar or teacher of the subjects taught at early European universities (such as theology, metaphysics and logic); a scholastic.
    • So if a mans wit be wandering, let him study Mathematicks; if his wit be not apt to distinguish, or finde difference, let him study the Schoole-men; if it be not apt to beat over matters, and to find out resemblances, let him study Lawyers cases. So every defect of the mind may have speciall receit.1597, Francis Bacon, Essays, London: John Jaggard, 1613, “Of Studies,”
    • Purgatory was a device of St. Austin’s in this century; but he both said and unsaid it, and at last, like a wise schoolman, left it doubtful.1764, James Murray, The History of Religion, 2nd edition, London: C. Henderson et al., Volume 1, Chapter 1, p. 65

Noun (2) capitalized: Schoolman

Schoolman (plural Schoolmen)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of schoolman.

Forms of schoolman

pluralschoolmen
pluralSchoolmen

Origin of schoolman

From Middle English scoleman (attested in names), from Old English scōlman, scōlmann (“student, scholar”), equivalent to school + -man.

Questions about schoolman

What does schoolman mean?
Schoolman means a medieval writer, scholar or teacher of the subjects taught at early European universities (such as theology, metaphysics and logic); a scholastic.
What part of speech is schoolman?
Schoolman is a noun.
What is the plural of schoolman?
The plural of schoolman is schoolmen.

Words near schoolman in the dictionary

  1. schoolma'am
  2. schoolma'amish
  3. schoolma'ams
  4. schoolmaid
  5. schoolmaids
  6. schoolman
  7. schoolmarm
  8. schoolmarmed
  9. schoolmarming
  10. schoolmarmish
  11. schoolmarmishly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: schoolman (page history and authors); Schoolman (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.

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