schoolfellow

C2+ Topic:People & Society

Also spelled school-fellow

US /ˈskulˌfɛloʊ/ UK /ˈskuːlˌfɛləʊ/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a person who attends or attended the same school as another

He met an old schoolfellow he had not seen for thirty years.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a person who attends or... schoolmate classmate peer companion comrade

Word family

Related forms school fellow schoolmate

Etymology

A compound of school + fellow; school from Latin schola via Old English scōl, and fellow from Old Norse fēlagi ('partner, one who lays down money together').

schola la-lat fēlagi Old Norse

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# schoolfellow

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈskulˌfɛloʊ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈskuːlˌfɛləʊ/

## Meanings
1. a person who attends or attended the same school as another

## Examples
- He met an old schoolfellow he had not seen for thirty years.

## Synonyms
- schoolmate
- classmate
- peer
- companion
- comrade

## Related Forms
- school
- fellow
- schoolmate

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: schola
- Root: fēlagi

## Etymology
A compound of school + fellow; school from Latin schola via Old English scōl, and fellow from Old Norse fēlagi ('partner, one who lays down money together').

## AI Etymology
Schoolfellow is a compound of school + fellow; school from Latin schola via Old English scōl, and fellow from Old Norse fēlagi ('partner, one who lays down money together'). The historical chain includes Latin schola and Old Norse fēlagi. Older glosses in the chain include "partner, one who lays down money together", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, schoolfellow is best read as compound and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "a person who attends or attended the same school as another". related forms include school, fellow, and schoolmate. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- People & Society

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