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pupil

nounnouncommon in dialogue

  • //ˈpjuːpəl//
  • //ˈpj̥uːpəɫ//

A learner at a school under the supervision of a teacher.

noun

  1. 1

    A learner at a school under the supervision of a teacher.

    The Pupil after his Pupillarity, had granted a Diſcharge to one of the Co-tutors, which did extinguiſh the whole Debt of that Co-tutor, and conſequently of all the reſt, they being all correi debendi, lyable by one individual Obligation, which cannot be Diſcharged as to one, and ſtand as to all the reſt.

    All of these different methods of teaching elementary reading were successful for some pupils, unsuccessful for others.

    The bell which called the pupils to their lessons can still be seen on the roof.

    Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.

  2. 2

    One who studies under supervision of a renowned expert in their field.

    Plato was Socrates' pupil, and in turn Aristotle was Plato's pupil.

    I understand; it’s because I seem to you to be a worse pupil than the judges in court, because obviously you’ll demonstrate to them that the sorts of things your father did are unjust and hated by all the gods.

  3. 3

    obsoleteAn orphan who is a minor and under the protection of the state.

Etymology

From Middle English pupille, from Anglo-Norman pupille (“orphan”), from Latin pūpillus (“orphan, minor”), variant of pūpulus (“little boy”), from pūpus (“child, boy”).

noun

  1. 1

    The hole in the middle of the iris of the eye, through which light passes to be focused on the retina.

    There are sharks with round pupils, sharks with slitlike pupils, and some with pupils that expand and contract with the amount of light available. As unimpressive as this might sound to people who are used to having their pupils dilate and contract regularly, realize that no bony fish has this modification of the eye.

  2. 2

    The central dark part of an ocellated spot.

Etymology

From Middle English pupille, from Old French pupille, from Latin pūpilla (“pupil; little girl, doll”), named because of the small reflected image seen when looking into someone's eye.

Forms

plural
pupils
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).