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:
Veronica Weir, who has 26 years' experience as a driving instructor thinks the law change is "terrific" and that young drivers can be irresponsible.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
In chapters set in the near present, Livia Cable is a childless, middle-aged piano instructor in rural eastern Tennessee.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
He trains regularly with a dance instructor and practices freestyle dancing, from San Francisco to his favorite city, Tokyo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
Shin balances her safe-haven portfolio with extra cash flow from her side job as a fitness instructor.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026
For Olga Yakovleva, the sunbathing flight instructor, it was a shock.
From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein
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
And then it was concert time, with Densmore on drums and instructors Calderon on guitar, Flores on percussion and Mackenzie Azela on bass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
Across the Northeast and New England camp corridor, summer camps have hired mahjong instructors to lead multiday clinics and are incorporating play into daily schedules.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
"I was diving in the Clyde and one of the instructors had to pull me out of the way of the tentacles as it was wafting above me," he said.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Candidate instructors, it stipulated, were to have a fluent knowledge of both the French and English languages, and only those of temperate habits and unquestionable character need apply.
From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger
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.
