scholar

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A learned person; a bookman.

   The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,[…]. Scribes, illuminators, and scholars held such stones directly over manuscript pages as an aid in seeing what was being written, drawn, or read.

2. 2
   noun

   someone (especially a child) who learns (as from a teacher) or takes up knowledge or beliefs

3. 3
   noun

   a learned person (especially in the humanities)

4. 4
   noun

   a student who holds a scholarship

5. 5
   noun

   A student; one who studies at school or college, typically having a scholarship.

6. 6
   noun

   A specialist in a particular branch of knowledge.

7. 7
   noun

   Someone who received a prestigious scholarship.

Etymology

From Middle English scolar, scolare, scoler, scolere (also scholer), from Old English scōlere (“scholar, learner”), from Late Latin scholāris, from schola (“school”), from Ancient Greek σχολή (skholḗ, “spare time, leisure", later, "conversations and the knowledge gained through them during free time; the places where these conversations took place”), equivalent to school + -ar. Compare Saterland Frisian Sköiler, Middle Low German schö̂lære, schö̂lere, schö̂ler (> modern German Low German Schöler), Dutch scholier, German Schüler. Doublet of escolar.