grade school
Americannoun
-
grade schools
plural
noun
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.
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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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.