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.

---

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

---

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

Former esports scholar Cameron Dray found out about Roehampton through the esports scholarship.

From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026

After a meteoric rise to the top ranks of British academia, scholar Jason Arday was found dead at his London home on Aug. 14, 2026.

From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026

One earlier scholar described this as a “touching” gift.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026

"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

As legal scholar John A. Powell once commented, only half in jest, “It’s actually better to be exploited than marginalized, in some respects, because if you’re exploited presumably you’re still needed.”

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

The public ultimately expects journalists, scholars and elected officials to behave ethically.

From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2026

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

Researchers believe historic parchment represents a largely unexplored source of information that could connect genetics with questions traditionally studied by historians, archaeologists, and other scholars.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026

As explained above, scholars cannot even agree on the basics, such as the existence of private property, nuclear families and monogamous relationships.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

Related Words

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