Word for Wednesday: Semester

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It’s back-to-school season! To celebrate, we’ve chosen school as our Word for Wednesday theme for September. 

The word school comes from the Old English ‘scol’ meaning ‘place of instruction’, from the Latin ‘schola’ meaning ‘intermission of work’ and ‘leisure for learning’. The idea of children attending a school is from around 1300 and the idea of a school building is from the 1590s.

Our first word of the month is semester. 

A semester is one of two divisions of a school year. The word is common in North American schools where the academic year is usually split into two eighteen-week semesters. Here in England, the academic year is usually split into three terms.

The word dates to 1827 and comes from the German ‘Semester’, which comes from the Latin ‘cursus semestris’ meaning ‘course of six months’. ‘Semestris’ comes from ‘sex’ meaning ‘six’ and ‘mensis’ meaning ‘month’.
 


01 Sep 2021
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