educate
Formseducates, educating, educated
Formseducates, educating, educated
- 1To provide someone with instruction or training, helping them gain knowledge or skills.
The academy was founded to educate orphans in reading, writing, and a trade.
Many parents choose to educate their children at home.
Note
The Latin behind it meant bringing up a child as much as teaching one. Ēducō covered rearing, training and nourishing, in body or in mind. English formed the verb by adding -en to an older form, educate, which already meant "educated." In use it is transitive, with the learner as its object (educate visitors, educate children), and it often takes about to name the subject taught.
- 2Having been instructed or trained; educated.
Note
A survivor from before English settled on the -ed participle: here educate itself means "educated," borrowed straight from Latin ēducātus, the same form that gave the verb its start. When it was compared, it took more and most (more educate, most educate). It is obsolete, so it belongs to reading older English, not writing it. Anyone describing a trained mind today uses educated.
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Origins
This verb comes through Middle English from Latin ēducātus, the past participle of ēducō, meaning to bring up, train, or nourish a child, whether physically or mentally, and to rear or educate a person. That verb was in turn built on ēducō meaning to lead out or draw out.
This form comes from Middle English educat(e), meaning 'educated', which was borrowed from Latin ēducātus, sharing the same origin as the verb.