instructor
Americannoun
-
instructors
plural
-
a person who instructs; teacher.
- Synonyms:
- pedagogue, preceptor, schoolmaster, tutor
-
a teacher in a college or university who ranks below an assistant professor.
noun
-
someone who instructs; teacher
-
a university teacher ranking below assistant professor
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of instructor
1425–75; late Middle English < Latin, equivalent to instruc-, variant stem of instruere ( see instruct) + -tor -tor
Compare meaning
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Explanation
An instructor is a teacher. One can be an instructor of just about anything, but it usually applies to teaching hands-on skills, like a water-skiing instructor or the instructor of the knitting class held at the community center. When you instruct, or teach, other people how to do something, you are their instructor. At a college, you might hear some of the people who teach classes referred to as instructors and others as professors. An instructor might teach only part-time, or be a graduate student, or, for the moment at least, not be on the path to receiving the title of professor. Still, instructors are teachers: they have their own classes and students.
Vocabulary lists containing instructor
Occupations
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List 2
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -er, -or
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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:
The airman, identified, external by the military as Sgt Ian Patterson, a Tactical Air Control Party instructor at Joint Base San Antonio, died in hospital.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
An 80-year-old man who died in a light aircraft crash is understood to be flying instructor Ian Haggis.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2026
A former tennis instructor, he treats the sport like a detective treats a case.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026
After his departure from the Dodgers, Claire worked as a columnist and analyst for MLB.com, a radio show host, an instructor at USC and a consultant to companies involved with sports.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
But like so many other young women, she wasn’t allowed to leave the flight school where she was an instructor.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
Faculty members at a number of institutions told MarketWatch that their computer-science departments scrambled to hire faculty when interest in the major peaked around 2023, and now the departments have a surplus of instructors.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 19, 2026
But studies show AI text detectors are often unreliable, generating false positives that can erode trust between instructors and students and forcing teachers to devise innovative methods to detect cheating and evaluate assignments.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
Some are paying the defense ministry to rent an air-defense system, with monthly payments required as instructors man the system, said two people close to Russia’s business community.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
It is not clear how many instructors and customers have been hit by the sudden decision to shut the studios down.
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026
The lights turn red and flicker as the instructors stir.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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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.
