scholar

American  

[skol-er] / ˈskɒl ər /

noun

• scholars
  plural

1. a learned or erudite person, especially one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject.

   Synonyms:

   savant

2. a student; pupil.

3. a student who has been awarded a scholarship.

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scholar British  

/ ˈskɒlə /

noun

1. a learned person, esp in the humanities

2. a person, esp a child, who studies; pupil

3. a student of merit at an educational establishment who receives financial aid, esp from an endowment given for such a purpose

4. a school pupil

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Synonym Usage

See pupil ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonscholar
  noun
• scholarliness
  noun
• nonscholarly
  adjective
• scholarless
  adjective
• scholarly
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• scholars
  plural

Etymology

Origin of scholar

First recorded before 1000; from Late Latin scholāris, equivalent to Latin schol(a) school ¹ + -āris -ar ¹; replacing Middle English scoler(e), Old English scolere, from Late Latin, as above

Explanation

Someone who learns is a scholar, though the word also means someone with a lot of knowledge in one subject. If you know a lot about books, you could be called a literary scholar. It doesn't take a Latin scholar to understand the word scholar. It probably reminds you of school, scholastic, and scholarship. That's because they all share the Latin root schola which means school. A scholar in the academic sense usually has his or her area of specialty in the humanities as opposed to the sciences.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

scholar scholars

"We usually think of the brain as a closed system," said Julia Belk, a postdoctoral scholar in pathology at Stanford Medicine and first author on the new study.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026

That may be one reason people are airing their frustrations on social media, according to Sara Collins, a senior scholar at the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on healthcare policy.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026

Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century scholar, wrote of a machine—a kind of “music-making ark”—that promised to furnish any user with a “complete acquaintance with composing.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

The College Track nonprofit posted that Urbina Ruiz was a scholar with the program, which supports first-generation students from under-resourced communities in earning a bachelor’s degree.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

Yes, a journal like that of Satao Nkrumah—a famous scholar of Zamani natural history—would surely include vital information on the Shetani.

From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray

And that was essentially a bat signal for scholars and historians to try to come up with those reasons and feed them to the court.

From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2026

Even the entreaties of Islamic scholars and officials of Islamic countries the world over have not bent the iron will of the emir and his enforcers, especially on the most sensitive issue of education.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

But law scholars are split on the issue that opens the door to a murky legal maze pitting the reach of a presidential pardon against the scope of the Fifth Amendment.

From Barron's ● Aug. 6, 2026

Sharing a federal law enforcement officer’s personal information is generally not considered a crime without evidence of criminal intent, a historically high bar in court, according to constitutional scholars and defense attorneys.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

Medieval scholars branded void as evil—and evil as void.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

Related Words

• academic
• doctor
• intellectual
• philosopher
• professor
• scientist
• student
• teacher