Word.ws English Dictionary

teacherese

teacherese noun: the sort of language spoken by teachers.

Noun

teacherese (uncountable)

  1. (humorous, sometimes) The sort of language spoken by teachers.
    • 'Troubled', the headmaster had said, presumably teacherese for the same thing.1995, Anabel Donald, In at the Deep End
    • This latter was a nice teacherese way of saying that Alex was hopelessly uncoordinated. It took her forever to learn to put on her underpants […]1997, Frank Deford, Alex: the life of a child

Origin of teacherese

From teacher + -ese.

Questions about teacherese

What does teacherese mean?
Teacherese means the sort of language spoken by teachers.
What part of speech is teacherese?
Teacherese is a noun.

Words near teacherese in the dictionary

  1. teacherages
  2. teachercentric
  3. teachercraft
  4. teacherdom
  5. teachered
  6. teacherese
  7. teacheress
  8. teacheresses
  9. teacherhood
  10. teachering
  11. teacherish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: teacherese (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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