adjective
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providing knowledge; instructive or informative
an educational toy
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of or relating to education
Other Word Forms
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countereducationalnoun
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antieducationaladjective
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noneducationaladjective
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posteducationaladjective
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preeducationaladjective
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pseudoeducationaladjective
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quasi-educationaladjective
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antieducationallyadverb
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countereducationallyadverb
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educationallyadverb
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noneducationallyadverb
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preeducationallyadverb
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pseudoeducationallyadverb
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quasi-educationallyadverb
Etymology
Origin of educational
Explanation
If something is educational, it teaches you some new information or gives you new knowledge. Listening to an organic farmer describe the process of beekeeping can be very educational. The adjective educational describes something that imparts new skills or knowledge. Reading a recipe is educational, if it teaches you how to make a perfect buttercream frosting for your cake, and a French class is also educational, as long as you learn something new from it. The word comes from the noun education, or "the process of teaching or learning," which actually meant "childrearing" in the 1500s, and was used interchangeably to mean "the training of animals."
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.
Dozens of public buildings, including educational and health facilities as well as government offices, were also affected.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
"I think most people are observing what I'm sharing with an educational message and they're not going out to just replicate that."
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
The agendas also contained a distorted periodic table, unreadable phases of the moon and other garbled educational material that parents suspect may have been created using artificial intelligence.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
Every student is issued a MacBook Pro, iPad and Apple Pencil, making cutting-edge technology an assumed component of the educational experience rather than a personal purchasing decision.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
He has done this right through the age of No Child Left Behind and of unyielding educational metrics, which seems to me an act of utter subversion and unwavering conviction of purpose.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
Definitions 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.
