First recorded in 1825–35
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
She admitted she found it difficult to adjust back to normal school life when the rules were lifted.
From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025
“These assemblies have ended up creating a disruption to normal school activities and has also left many students feeling unsafe and unwelcome.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2024
Nova High and Washington Middle School nearby are in shelter-in-place mode, with outside doors locked but normal school operations continuing, the district said.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 6, 2024
Because I was a television actor, I wasn't being considered for films, so after a season would end, I'd just go back to my normal school.
From Salon ● Dec. 5, 2023
They wouldn’t pay for a real teacher trained at the Terre Haute normal school.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
The international team of co-authors also includes researchers from Monash University and the Museums Victoria Research Institute in Australia; the Benemérita Normal School of Coahuila in Mexico and the Smithsonian Institution.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 16, 2023
Once she graduated from high school, Mabovitch attended Milwaukee Normal School and trained to become a teacher.
From National Geographic ● Sep. 12, 2023
Heck, 200 years ago, when the first Normal School — the two-year seminary for educating teachers — opened in Vermont in 1823, parents who cared more about work than their kids was a hot topic.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 23, 2023
Towson University, which was called Maryland Normal School when it was founded in 1866, was racially segregated until the U.S.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 20, 2022
At the nearby Normal School, for example, the number of women applying to become teacher trainees was said to be many times the usual.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
