grammar schooln.
A school for teaching grammar.attributive.1826 S. Smith Wks. (1869) 529 An Hamiltonian makes, in six or seven lessons, three or four hundred times as many exchanges of English for French or Latin, as a grammar schoolboy can do.1898 J. K. Jerome Second Thoughts 266 I like to think of him [Shakespeare] as poacher, as village ne'er-do-well, denounced by the local grammar-school master.
1. The name given in England to a class of schools, of which many of the English towns have one, founded in the 16th cent. or earlier for the teaching of Latin. They subsequently became secondary schools of various degrees of importance, a few of them ranking little below the level of the ‘public schools’. Since the Education Act of 1944, any secondary school with a ‘liberal’ curriculum including languages, history, literature, and the sciences, as distinct from technical or modern schools.
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society > education > place of education > school > [noun] > grammar school
grammar schoola1387
Latin school1651
grammar-castle1670
grammar-college1886
grammar1950
a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1874) V. 51 At Alexandria he heeld a gramer scole [L. scholam..grammaticalem].
1454 in F. J. Furnivall Fifty Earliest Eng. Wills (1882) 133 For to fynde to gramer scole my cosyn, his sone William.
?1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. li I lerned two verses at the grammer scole.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) iv. vii. 31 Thou hast most traiterously corrupted the youth of the Realme, in erecting a Grammar Schoole . View more context for this quotation
c1616 R. C. Times' Whistle (1871) ii. 846 The foole Was never farther then the grammer schoole.
1647 Laws Massachusetts (1672) 136 Where any Town shall increase to the number of one hundred Families..they shall set up a Grammar School.
1711 R. Steele Spectator No. 157. ⁋1 The many Heart-aches and Terrors, to which our Childhood is exposed in going through a Grammar-School.
1809 E. A. Kendall Trav. Northern Parts U.S. III. lxxvii. 197 It differs therefore in nothing from the other grammar schools, called academies.
1839 T. De Quincey Lake Reminisc. in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 92/2 At the little town of Hawkshead..a grammar-school (which, in English usage, means a school for classical literature) was founded.
1866 G. Bancroft Hist. U.S. IX. xxii. 368 They provided for a school in each town, a grammar-school in each county, and a university in the state.
1874 J. R. Green Short Hist. Eng. People vi. §4. 305 The grammar schools of Edward the Sixth and of Elizabeth..had changed the very face of England.
1963 H. C. Barnard & J. A. Lauwerys Handbk. Brit. Educ. Terms 101 Grammar school,..The term nowadays is used for a secondary school with an academic curriculum, particularly suited for preparing pupils for entry to the universities or professions.
2. U.S. ‘In the system of graded common schools in the United States, the grade or department in which English grammar is one of the subjects taught’ ( Cent. Dict.).
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1671 Doc. & Rec. New Hampsh. I. 312 To sett up a grammer schoole and appointe a master thereof.]
1789 J. Morse Amer. Geogr. 175 There is also to be a grammar school.
1848 Indiana Gen. Assembly Doc. II. 279 Connected with the Institution is a flourishing Grammar School, which serves the double purpose of a Normal School and a Preparatory Department.
1860 J. E. Worcester Dict. Eng. Lang. Grammar-School..2. A school next in rank above a primary school and below a high school. (U.S.)
1874 Amer. Cycl. VI. 424/2 After passing through the primary grade..the pupil enters the grammar school.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1900; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
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