to impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in.
She teaches mathematics.
to impart knowledge or skill to; give instruction to.
He teaches a large class.
to help to learn; tell or show (how)
to teach someone to paint
to teach someone how to paint
to give instruction or lessons in (a subject) to (a person or animal)
to teach French
to teach children
she teaches
(tr; may take a clause as object or an infinitive) to cause to learn or understand
experience taught him that he could not be a journalist
Also: teach someone a lesson. informal to cause (someone) to suffer the unpleasant consequences of some action or behaviour
Teach, instruct, tutor, train, educate share the meaning of imparting information, understanding, or skill. Teach is the broadest and most general of these terms and can refer to almost any practice that causes others to develop skill or knowledge: to teach children to write; to teach marksmanship to soldiers; to teach tricks to a dog. Instruct almost always implies a systematic, structured method of teaching: to instruct paramedics in techniques of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Tutor refers to the giving of usually private instruction or coaching in a particular subject or skill: to tutor a child in ( a foreign language, algebra, history, or the like ). Train lays stress on the development of desired behaviors through practice, discipline, or the use of rewards or punishments: to train a child to be polite; to train recruits in military skills; to train a dog to heel. Educate, with a root sense of “to lead forth from,” refers to the imparting of a specific body of knowledge, especially one that equips a person to practice a profession: to educate a person for a high school diploma; to educate someone for the law.
First recorded before 900; Middle English techen, Old English tǣcan; akin to token
To teach is to transfer ideas or skills to another person. As an old saying goes, "Give someone a fish, they eat for a day, teach someone to fish and they eat for a lifetime." I hope they like seafood. The Old English word tǣcan, which became the Middle English techen, meant "to show or point out." But the Old English also had another word for teach — læran — which eventually became the modern "learn," with the current meaning of receiving knowledge rather than giving it. If someone tries to "teach you a lesson," he or she tries to punish you for something you've done in order that you won't do it again.
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At the Los Angeles Unified School District high school where I teach, this exact type of “adjustment” is happening for the 2026-2027 school year because of declining enrollment.
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026
Paralympic swimmer Jamal Hill founded Swim Up Hill with a goal to teach underprivileged children how to swim.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
"They used to teach us word by word. They taught us how to cross the road. Look left, right."
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Labs train dangerous knowledge into a model’s weights, then teach the model not to answer certain questions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
Betsie kept the Bible during the day, since she had more chance to read and teach from it here than I did at the Phillips barracks.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Teach the good, the bad, the ugly and the shameful.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
Randomly, I saw a Teach for America group promoting in the quad at school.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2025
Data gathered by survey tool Teacher Tapp, commissioned by teaching charity Teach First, suggests 15% of schools in the poorest communities cannot offer computer science GCSE, compared to 4% of the wealthiest schools.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2025
Sethi, founder of the financial education platform I Will Teach You to Be Rich, encourages his hundreds of thousands of followers to “live your rich life outside the spreadsheet.”
From Salon ● May 24, 2025
“I was like, Teach is a weirdo,” she said.
From "Because of Mr. Terupt" by Rob Buyea
Kaijage, who teaches political science and public administration, was not asked to enter a plea at Thursday's hearing as his terrorism case can only be heard by a higher court.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
But each is pushing for leverage, raising fear of an escalatory spiral that gets out of hand, said Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services who teaches at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
She told me, “You seem to love watercolors,” and mentioned that the artist who painted them, Pamela Harnois, lives in Los Angeles and teaches nearby.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
Get familiar with this term, because it basically means AI teaches itself and then learns and works on its own.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
We walk right over, and the watermelon seller teaches me how to test if a watermelon's ripe.
From "Born Behind Bars" by Padma Venkatraman
Ellis taught investing at both Harvard Business School and Yale.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
A big secret of the ambitious McCreary’s success harks back to lessons of simplicity that Bernstein taught him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
As I stared into his tired eye, I remembered what he and Hook taught us.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
Foster continued that Oddie "taught us the wonder of" the environment.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
And—most wonderful of all—he’d taught him to read.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
I have another patient who spends time teaching her adult granddaughter all of her homespun recipes, and comforting her when she has disputes with her parents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026
During the ‘60s and ‘70s, she took on a series of part-time jobs to provide for her children, designing costumes at a cultural center and teaching at area art schools.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
It was a personal matter that never came up in class, but almost certainly influenced her passion for her work and her teaching.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
She was a disciple of the anatomy-based, apparatus-free gymnastics 'Swedish system', and this specialism defined her teaching.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
There was a job for Dad if he wanted, teaching about New Orleans music.
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
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.
