teacher
Americannoun
-
teachers
plural
noun
-
a person whose occupation is teaching others, esp children
-
a personified concept that teaches
nature is a good teacher
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of teacher
First recorded in 1250–1300, teacher is from the Middle English word techer. See teach, -er 1
Compare meaning
How does teacher compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
If the guy down the street shows you how to play the guitar and helps you develop a masterful plucking style, then he's your guitar teacher. A teacher is anyone who teaches things. Schools hire people to be teachers, but you don't have to work in a school to be a teacher. You can be a teacher to your children. If you're really good at making pizza, you can be a teacher to an aspiring pizza chef. If you're really passionate about methods of education, then you can become a teacher who teaches teachers how to teach better. Whoa.
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:
FSD drives at least as well as Coach Vestal, my high-school driver’s ed teacher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
He has estimated he will owe around £50,000 in student loans by the time he finishes his course and qualifies as a teacher.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
A teacher by profession, Rocha has dabbled both in academia and politics throughout his career.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
Home with his mother before school, he was drafting a note to a teacher about a bad grade, and in between, he tapped out a few jokes and deleted each one.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026
I won’t like the people who buy the land, and I won’t like my teacher, or the kids in my class, or the ride on the bus.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
A memo Barton wrote this year, reviewed by the Journal, shows him pushing teachers to preserve third-grade lessons on “Moses, Hebrew slavery, the Exodus, and the Promised Land.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
But dirty toilets are not his biggest problem – it is the lack of teachers, he says.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
But on Wednesday when BBC visited the institution, 30 had been deployed to help with voters' list revision, four others were off sick, leaving only six teachers to manage the children.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
“This is their celebration too,” Kim told students, asking them to recognize the parents, teachers and mentors who helped them reach that moment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
“I think it’s what the teachers called him,” I stammer.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
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.
