enroll

Chiefly American campus life runs on this verb: students enroll in courses each term, and in the same setting adding a class works as a near-synonym. The usual preposition is in (enroll in introductory biology), though enroll for a course is also normal. Sign up for is the everyday alternative when the tone is casual.

An academic sense that is about status rather than schedule: a student who enrolls at a university becomes an admitted, matriculated member of it. The preposition helps keep it apart from signing up for a single course. One enrolls at or in an institution, but in a class. Enrolling in this sense comes first, and choosing courses follows from it.

The oldest sense keeps the word's makeup in view. Middle English enrollen, from Anglo-Norman enroller, is en- plus roll, so to enroll was to put a name onto the roll itself. Milton could write in 1649 of a right so engraved in the heart that it "needed not enrolling," meaning it never had to be written down. Record and register are close synonyms, but enroll still suggests an official list rather than a casual note.

Here the person signs themselves up, and the construction has shifted over time. Prescott, writing in the 1850s, has citizens who "enrolled themselves." Today the reflexive pronoun is usually dropped, and the verb stands alone with in: enroll in a program, in the reserves, in classes. Join is the everyday equivalent, while enroll implies a formal list behind the joining. The transitive use is the same act done to someone else.

Australian and New Zealand English use the verb on its own for getting onto the voters' list. A resident simply enrolls, with no need to add "to vote." The usage brings the word back to its list-keeping origin, since the roll here is the list of voters. Elsewhere the same act is called registering, so the bare verb can puzzle readers from other countries.