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Synonyms

grade school

American  
Also graded school

noun

  • grade schools
    plural
  1. an elementary school that has its pupils grouped or classified into grades.


grade school British  

noun

  1. another name for elementary school

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms


Etymology

Origin of grade school

An Americanism dating back to 1850–55


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:

I grew up in eastern Kentucky and attended grade school in a four-room schoolhouse without indoor plumbing that had a potbelly stove for heat in the winter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

In grade school, we’d play a game of tag called “Fidel vs. the Cubans.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 3, 2026

It’s been speculated, notably by MSNOW’s Chris Hayes, that Trump was looking at the Mercator Projection map that we probably all remember from our grade school geography textbooks.

From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2026

Recall from grade school fraction math that you may cancel diagonally; the two “sales” disappear, as do the “assets.”

From Barron's ● Dec. 26, 2025

She thought it was preposterous, that she, a girl of fourteen, with nothing but a grade school education, would be considered eligible to take over the work of a thirty-year-old college graduate like Miss Armstrong.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

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