curriculum
Americannoun
-
curricula,
plural
-
curriculums
plural
-
the aggregate of courses of study given in a school, college, university, etc..
The school is adding more science courses to its curriculum.
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the regular or a particular course of study in a school, college, etc.
noun
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a course of study in one subject at a school or college
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a list of all the courses of study offered by a school or college
-
any programme or plan of activities
Usage
Plural word for curriculum The plural form of curriculum can be either curricula or curriculums, although curricula is more commonly used. The plurals of several other singular words that end in -um are also formed in the same way, including memorandum/memoranda, and bacterium/bacteria. Irregular plurals that are formed like curricula derive directly from their original pluralization in Latin. However, the usual plural -s ending is often also acceptable for many of these terms, as in curriculums and memorandums.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of curriculum
First recorded in 1625–35; from Latin: “action of running, course of action, race, chariot,” equivalent to curr(ere) “to run” + -i- -i- + -culum -cule 2
Explanation
A curriculum is a set of courses designed to give expertise, like the shoemaking curriculum at Shoe U: Advanced Cutting, Hammering, and Stitching; History of the Heel; and A Cultural History of Walking. Curriculum comes from the Latin word for "running course," or "career," but when we talk about curriculum it's always about school. If you go to a school with a Liberal Arts curriculum, you'll get an education in the humanities with some science, but if you go to a technical school with a hard-core astrophysics curriculum, you probably won't have to take any courses on poetry.
Vocabulary lists containing curriculum
The Vocabulary of College
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Make a Run for It: Cur, Curs
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Schooled
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
McKenzie said he thinks AI should be added to the national curriculum, adding that "it's getting harder and harder to see what's AI and what's not".
From BBC ● Oct. 20, 2026
These repeated half-term breaks and the long summer vacation mean French teachers have to squash their curriculum into 162 days per year, compared to 225 days in Germany for example, according to the OECD.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
The next Pisa tests, planned for 2029, will be the first with the new curriculum fully in place.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
If admissions policies, faculty and curriculum don’t improve, administrators haven’t changed anything.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
Though tribal indoctrination was still the focus of our curriculum in Standard Four, a few new and challenging subjects were introduced.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
The curriculum, which started being developed in 2014 and is only being fully rolled out this academic year, gives schools freedom to design their own curricula.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
It provides yearlong professional development to Title I school teachers, who bring museum-developed arts curricula into their classrooms.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
Some say customers aren’t exactly paying for innovation, but rather for decades of familiarity on the educator side — along with textbooks that build the calculators into their curricula.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026
But that can’t happen while Unrwa remains one of the biggest employers in the strip, the primary provider of municipal services and author of school curricula.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
I know the answer to every question already, since I’ve studied the seventh- and eighth-grade curricula in Kunu Yaku.
From "The Queen of Water" by Laura Resau
Popular methodologies today for middle and high schools stress group work, projects, technology, and an oppressive focus on math and science curriculums.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
“People just don't know how our parents came here. It was never in any of our curriculums to know about this.”
From Salon ● May 20, 2024
Students stultified by scripted curriculums and endless test prep.
From New York Times ● Mar. 14, 2024
The school's head teacher said its curriculums were planned and audited following government guidelines.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2023
But form the plurals of others simply by adding s: curriculums; formulas; memorandums; stadiums.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
