academy
Pluralacademies
- 1A school or training place where a particular art or skill is taught.
He trained at a famous fencing academy in Paris.
The academy offers intensive courses in classical singing.
UsageUsually with the skill in front: a dance academy, a music academy, a military academy.
Similarschool, conservatory
Note
Usually the skill comes first and names the school: a riding academy, a language academy, the military academy at West Point. Delano Ames's Crime out of Mind (1956) has a young woman, Irene, "fresh from a music academy in England." Such a school trains one particular art or skill rather than offering a broad course of study.
- 2A school, often a private secondary school, or sometimes a college or other institution of higher learning.
The academy admitted only a small number of students each year.
He spent four years at a respected academy before entering public service.
UsageTakes a capital A in a school's name (Phillips Academy); otherwise lower case: a private academy.
- 3A society of learned people joined together to advance the arts, sciences, literature, or some particular field.
The academy published its members' research in an annual journal.
Several Nobel laureates belong to the royal academy.
UsageNames take a capital (the French Academy); otherwise often academy of a field: an academy of sciences.
Similarsociety, association, institute
Note
Here the word names a body people belong to rather than a place they study in: the French Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Unlike a school of special training, it gathers members who are already learned.
- 4The world of scholars and institutions engaged in higher education and research, especially as the voice of established opinion in a field.
The academy has long debated how best to teach writing.
Her findings were widely discussed across the academy.
UsageUsually the academy, with no particular school meant: in the academy, across the academy.
Note
Here the academy is the scholarly world as a whole, just as academia is. Neoliberal Tools (and Archives) (2016) sets it against everything beyond it: "in the academy and outside of it," a contrast this sense naturally invites.
- 5In England, a school funded directly by central government and run by an academy trust independently of local authority control.
The school became an academy in 2012, leaving local authority oversight behind.
Several struggling schools were converted into academies under the new policy.
UsageSchools become or convert to academies; it is a state school, not a private one, closest to an American charter school.
Note
A British policy term that stands apart from every older use. An academy in this sense is defined by who funds and governs it, not by what or how it teaches. Central government pays for it directly, and the local authority has no control over it.
Less common meanings
- 6The school of philosophy that Plato founded in a grove outside ancient Athens, together with the followers who carried on its teaching.
Aristotle studied at the Academy under Plato for nearly twenty years.
The Academy lay just beyond the walls of Athens.
UsageWritten the Academy, with a capital A; for later schools, academy is lower case except in a name (Phillips Academy).
Note
Every other sense descends from this place: a grove and gymnasium outside Athens, named for the Attic hero Akademos, its supposed former owner. Plato taught there, and the name reached English through Latin Acadēmīa and Middle English. In this sense it is usually capitalized, and it also covers the followers who carried on Plato's teaching.
- 7The body of knowledge taught and handed down within an academy.
Note
This sense has long been out of use. A modern reader who meets it in older prose should read "learning" where academy stands: the knowledge itself, not the building or the society that holds it. It is not a sense to revive in your own writing. For the learned world as a whole, the academy as academia is the current choice.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Academy historically meant the knowledge taught within an academy, and that sense is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English Achademia, from Classical Latin Acadēmia, from Ancient Greek Ἀκαδημία (Akadēmía), the name of a grove of trees and gymnasium outside Athens where Plato taught. The place was named after Akademos, the Attic hero said to have once owned the estate.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Academy derives through Middle English Achademia and Classical Latin Acadēmia from Ancient Greek Ἀκαδημία (Akadēmía). en.wiktionary.org
- Akadēmía named a grove and gymnasium outside Athens where Plato taught. en.wiktionary.org
- The place was named after Akademos, an Attic hero traditionally regarded as its former owner. en.wiktionary.org